Programming the ATtiny841 with avrdude
Working with my good friend Daniel McLaren on a cool interactive art project, I designed a board around the ATtiny841, which is a nifty new entry to the AVR portfolio. Unfortunately when intial power up of the board was successful, I found I was totally unable to write code to the device with avrdude as I normally would; the chip is unsupported in even the latest version. I found a helpful post on AVRFreaks with a code listing for avrdude.conf that was purported to work, but I found it produced verfication errors (and a non-working chip) every time.
After much mucking around and recreating the part in avrdude a dozen times, I got it to work.
As much for my benefit as everyone else’s, below is the snippet that worked for me. I am using a USBtinyISP board from adafruit.
Do keep in mind that I haven’t tested proper operation of anything other than writing and reading the Flash. EEPROM, fuses, etc. may not be functional, but it’s certainly better than nothing! Use at your own risk, blah blah.
Place the below snippet into /etc/avrdude.conf or ~/.avrduderc
#------------------------------------------------------------
# ATTiny841
#------------------------------------------------------------
part
id = "t841";
desc = "ATtiny841";
has_debugwire = yes;
flash_instr = 0xB4, 0x07, 0x17;
eeprom_instr = 0xBB, 0xFF, 0xBB, 0xEE, 0xBB, 0xCC, 0xB2, 0x0D,
0xBC, 0x07, 0xB4, 0x07, 0xBA, 0x0D, 0xBB, 0xBC,
0x99, 0xE1, 0xBB, 0xAC;
## no STK500 devcode in XML file, use the ATtiny45 one
stk500_devcode = 0x14;
## avr910_devcode = ?;
## Try the AT90S2313 devcode:
avr910_devcode = 0x20;
signature = 0x1e 0x93 0x15;
reset = io;
chip_erase_delay = 4500;
pgm_enable = "1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1",
"x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x";
chip_erase = "1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 x x x x x",
"x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x";
timeout = 200;
stabdelay = 100;
cmdexedelay = 25;
synchloops = 32;
bytedelay = 0;
pollindex = 3;
pollvalue = 0x53;
predelay = 1;
postdelay = 1;
pollmethod = 1;
hvsp_controlstack =
0x4C, 0x0C, 0x1C, 0x2C, 0x3C, 0x64, 0x74, 0x66,
0x68, 0x78, 0x68, 0x68, 0x7A, 0x6A, 0x68, 0x78,
0x78, 0x7D, 0x6D, 0x0C, 0x80, 0x40, 0x20, 0x10,
0x11, 0x08, 0x04, 0x02, 0x03, 0x08, 0x04, 0x0F;
hventerstabdelay = 100;
hvspcmdexedelay = 0;
synchcycles = 6;
latchcycles = 1;
togglevtg = 1;
poweroffdelay = 25;
resetdelayms = 0;
resetdelayus = 70;
hvleavestabdelay = 100;
resetdelay = 25;
chiperasepolltimeout = 40;
memory "eeprom"
size = 512;
paged = no;
page_size = 4;
min_write_delay = 4000;
max_write_delay = 4500;
readback_p1 = 0xff;
readback_p2 = 0xff;
read = "1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 x x x x a8",
"a7 a6 a5 a4 a3 a2 a1 a0 o o o o o o o o";
write = "1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 x x x x a8",
"a7 a6 a5 a4 a3 a2 a1 a0 i i i i i i i i";
loadpage_lo = " 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1",
" 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0",
" 0 0 0 0 0 0 a1 a0",
" i i i i i i i i";
writepage = " 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0",
" 0 0 x x x x x x",
" x a6 a5 a4 a3 a2 0 0",
" x x x x x x x x";
mode = 0x41;
delay = 6;
blocksize = 4;
readsize = 256;
;
memory "flash"
paged = yes;
size = 8192;
page_size = 16;
num_pages = 512;
min_write_delay = 4500;
max_write_delay = 4500;
readback_p1 = 0xff;
readback_p2 = 0xff;
read_lo = " 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0",
" 0 0 0 0 a11 a10 a9 a8",
" a7 a6 a5 a4 a3 a2 a1 a0",
" o o o o o o o o";
read_hi = " 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0",
" 0 0 0 0 a11 a10 a9 a8",
" a7 a6 a5 a4 a3 a2 a1 a0",
" o o o o o o o o";
loadpage_lo = " 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0",
" 0 0 0 x x x x x",
" x x x x x a2 a1 a0",
" i i i i i i i i";
loadpage_hi = " 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0",
" 0 0 0 x x x x x",
" x x x x x a2 a1 a0",
" i i i i i i i i";
writepage = " 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0",
" 0 0 0 0 a11 a10 a9 a8",
" a7 a6 a5 a4 a3 x x x",
" x x x x x x x x";
mode = 0x41;
delay = 10;
blocksize = 16;
readsize = 256;
;
# ATtiny841 has Signature Bytes: 0x1E 0x93 0x0C.
memory "signature"
size = 3;
read = "0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 x x x x x",
"x x x x x x a1 a0 o o o o o o o o";
;
memory "lock"
size = 1;
write = "1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 x x x x x",
"x x x x x x x x x x x x x x i i";
read = "0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0",
"0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 o o o o o o o o";
min_write_delay = 9000;
max_write_delay = 9000;
;
memory "lfuse"
size = 1;
write = "1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0",
"x x x x x x x x i i i i i i i i";
read = "0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0",
"x x x x x x x x o o o o o o o o";
min_write_delay = 9000;
max_write_delay = 9000;
;
memory "hfuse"
size = 1;
write = "1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0",
"x x x x x x x x i i i i i i i i";
read = "0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0",
"x x x x x x x x o o o o o o o o";
min_write_delay = 9000;
max_write_delay = 9000;
;
memory "efuse"
size = 1;
write = "1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0",
"x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x i";
read = "0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0",
"x x x x x x x x o o o o o o o o";
min_write_delay = 9000;
max_write_delay = 9000;
;
memory "calibration"
size = 1;
read = "0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 x x x x x",
"0 0 0 0 0 0 0 a0 o o o o o o o o";
;
;