This program is conveniently able to download firmware into FX, FX2, and FX2LP EZ-USB devices, as well as the original AnchorChips EZ-USB. It is intended to be invoked by hotplug scripts when the unprogrammed device appears on the bus.

Primarily as an aid for developers, this can also be used to update firmware on devices which boot from I2C serial EEPROMs. For that use, as well as downloading firmware to all other off-chip memory, a second stage loader must first be downloaded.

The distribution includes "a3load.hex", which is a simple second stage loader that works with all the EZ-USB products listed above. If you want to write to an EEPROM, you can use the appropriate version of the Vend_Ax code provided with the Cypress developer kit.

See the download page at http://linux-hotplug.sourceforge.net for the latest release. The CVS repository there holds the most current version of this software. The web site shows some ways to use "fxload" in conjunction with USB hotplugging, to load device firmware.

Post any bug reports to the linux-hotplug-devel or linux-usb-devel lists.

If you modify the code, the GPL requires that you make your updates generally available (under most circumstances). Providing them in the form of patches against the current CVS (cvs diff -u), or the last release (diff -u old new) is most useful, since otherwise it's awkward to integrate such changes into the standard distribution.

Flash a custom VID:PID into a device EEPROM:

./fxload -D /dev/bus/usb/aaa/bbb -c 0x01 -s Vend_Ax.hex -t fx2lp -d xxxx:xxxx

You can retreive the correct path by reading the first numbers in front of the device entry provided in lsusb in front of the FX2 device you are trying to program.

Flash a custom firmware into a device EEPROM usind default VID:PID:

./fxload -D /dev/bus/usb/aaa/bbb -I firmware.hex -c 0x01 -s Vend_Ax.hex -t fx2lp

Flash a custom firmware into a device EEPROM using custom VID:PID:

./fxload -D /dev/bus/usb/aaa/bbb -I firmware.hex -c 0x01 -s Vend_Ax.hex -t fx2lp -d PIDx:VIDx