Types
There are four general types of device programmers: Gang programmers for mass production, development programmers for development and small-series production, pocket programmers for development and field service, and specialized programmers for certain circuit types only, f.i. EPROM programmers. Early device programmers had the size of a shoe box and a weight of up to 4 kg; the latest generation device programmers are pocket sized, weigh less than 200 g and require no external power supply. These types of programmers can be used in field service for maintenance or setup of machinery that contains programmable circuits.
A challenge for device programmer manufacturers is the design of the pin drivers that are directly connected to the circuit to be programmed. Due to the many programmable circuits, every pin driver must be able to apply different voltages in a range of 0..25 Volts, clock rates of up to 40 MHz, and logic inputs with adjustable threshold. Modern programmers use a dedicated integrated circuit for the pin drivers.
Read more about this topic: Programmer (hardware)
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