Chen Xiao Fan wrote:
> We also believed ICSP is the way to go four years back
> when flash PICs starts to getting cheaper. After three
> years of using ICSP and lots of problem with Promate II
> ICSP modules, we came to a conclusion that it is not so
> cost effective as off-line programming using production
> quality programmers (not in the sense of Microchip's
> definition, Promate II and III are not of production
> quality IMHO).

I'm curious what the problems were.  I know the Promates are rather
expensive but always thought they were robust, although I've never used one.
I've heard people complain that they are awfully klunky, require various
adapters, and until recently weren't scriptable, but I hadn't heard of them
being unreliable before.  Of course everyone should be using a ProProg
anyway http://www.embedinc.com/proprog ;-)

> There are some other potential
> problems with ICSP as well (testing pins takes valuable
> board space, pogo pins contact problems,

I guess it depends on what the other functional testing requirements are
already.  If you have to make a fixture with pogo pin pads for other reasons
anway, adding ICSP isn't a big deal incrementally.

> For low quantity mass production maybe ICSP can be a
> good choice.

I've got customers using it for high volumes (100K - 3M) too.  In this case
a small RF transmitter needs to be calibrated, and an IR LED and a few other
things checked.  Also a serial number needs to be written to the 10F202
controller.  That essentially requires a programmer anyway.  Writing the
program is a trivial addition given all that.

We're also using ICSP on many other products.  One of the benefits is that
the lag time from new code to new units produced with that code is much
lower.  It also allows for easily upgrading the code in existing units, at
least at the factory or in the lab.


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