looking for good stand-alone production programmer

[bjaminp]

Does anyone know of a good universal programmer that is capable of writing to UCs like the Zilog Z8?

I need something that meets the following criteria:
1. Stand-alone programmer - works without a computer.
2. Can handle in-system programming of a die mounted on a PCB.
3. Very durable, or disposable, for use in an industrial/production environment.

I am also looking for something that is more universal to handle other processors (Cypress, Renesas, Atmel, etc.) as the product lines evolve. I have looked at the Zilog third party website links, but don't seem to see much in the way of durable, affordable, in-system capability. My other option is to try and develop my own, but I am afraid that is a bigger project than I want to consider. Any ideas?

 

[felixc]

The microcontrollers rarely have a similar programming interface between brands. The Zilog uses only one pin to do everything from programming to in-circuit monitoring. Others have have a Jtag interface. What I suggest is that you define a box that is made of an industrial computer that will include the CPU card, the programming pod and a software set. There are pre-boxed industrial computer sets that even have an LCD screen. General Digital makes such boxes. The software can run from a solid-state IDE disk Document it as a unit, have security backups, and buy a couple of pods. They're usually cheap.

Data I/O used to have high volume programming machines. I don't know how do they fare with in-circuit programming. If you have such machines in production, the manufacturers of in-circuit testers (HP, Teradyne), or manufacturing defects analysers may offer programming algorithms to combine the prorgamming of these devices along with the test of the boards.

 

[cbarn24050]

Use a programming house to do it for you. Some chip makers can supply parts allready programmed.