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Comment by duskwuff | Hacker News Reader

For what it's worth: if you have a FT2232H adapter hanging around (and if you don't, you should consider getting one), those adapters can easily be flashed to be compatible with Vivado:

https://docs.amd.com/r/en-US/ug908-vivado-programming-debugg...

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At work we always have 20-30x FT2232H on stock.

They are super useful - they speak GPIO, I2C, SPI, parallel FIFO, etc.

And their pyFTDI Python lib is great.

Just be careful as the counterfeit FTDI chips can have bad internal regulators etc. (Usually those small Red UART and GPIO breakout hobby PCB.)

Usually better to use the vendor supplied JTAG tools, or build your own with known good silicon. Recovering FPGA hardware is always a mixed bag of what IP and documentation is available to bring up the board. Looks like nice silicon though. =3

Also beware that FTDI has bricked swathes of gear that (often inadvertently) used counterfeit chips, via driver updates. So if you buy gear that uses an FTDI chip then if you’re unlucky want it turns out to be counterfeit, your thing might get bricked. :/

Importantly not just counterfeit chips but also completely legal clone chips. For context, for a long time Windows did not have a driver for the CDC serial communication class out of the box. But FTDI had made good Windows drivers, and their interface was easy to clone. So for a time there was a market for making 3rd-party chips implementing FTDI's interface and copying their USB id to be recognized by their driver[0]. Of course some unscrupulous sellers would inevitably try to pass those of as genuine FTDI chips. FTDI was probably not happy with either of them, with the clone chips manufacturer piggybacking of their hard work. But they could only do anything about the counterfeits, so they kinda ignored the existence of legal clones and in all their public communication only talked about taking steps to shut down counterfeit chips (most likely well knowing that their were also destroying chips of legitimate competitors).

[0] Clearly allowed at least in the US under the decision in Sega v. Accolade

The issue was, if I recall correctly, that the Microsoft CDC driver was quite buggy. This led to the situation where CDC device vendors were unwilling to produce CDC compatible devices, because the default Microsoft driver would be used and, of course, the blame for any bugginess gets pinned on the hardware vendor.

Hence the current situation of many CDC-type devices that are intentionally incompatible enough with the standard, in order to require the device vendor's own drivers which they can ensure meet their quality expectations

In general, the Microchip CDC driver was free to use.

"The CDC class has been implemented in Windows (since Windows 98), macOS and most Linux distributions. Since Windows 10, no extra information has to be given in the start-up sequence as the operating system now has a generic driver that will be used for CDC. To support older versions of Windows (Windows 7 and earlier), provide an .inf file that associates with the correct driver."

However, these will not support the high-speed bit-banged JTAG mode FTDI chips can perform with the right driver. =3

Many Chip VID:PID listed in

> lsusb

C:\> Get-PnpDevice -PresentOnly | Where-Object { $_.InstanceId -match '^USB' } | Format-List

are considered copyrighted IP in North America. Many of the paid device codes are often not like other Communication Device Class drivers or free generic HID devices listed in the USB standard.

Early next year Windows 11 will be locking out unsigned drivers from the OS. Good for keeping the kernel more consistent, but could be bad for hobby hardware drivers.

Personally, I think it is ludicrous, but for 83% of users they have no other option than pay $6.32 for a $$0.43 chip. =3

> are considered copyrighted IP in North America.

Yes they may be, but in the Sega v. Accolade case I mentioned earlier it was decided that copying of both copyrighted and trademarked material for interoperability purposes is fair use. In that case Accolade had to literally embed "SEGA" inside their ROM and send the text to the Genesis III in order for it to boot their games. The Ninth Circuit court ruled that this constituted fair use.

Early next year Windows 11 will be locking out unsigned drivers from the OS.

That's been the case since Windows 7 for 64-bit drivers, hasn't it? What's changing with 11?

Hardware drivers not certified by the Microsoft lab will not install. No longer can folks dismiss the nag screen to run some bespoke piece of hardware.

This is apparently being done to improve kernel security and reliability. It could be a PR disaster depending how it is rolled out...

People can blame things like the old generic PC-case-bling LED driver CVE people and even its original author lost patience with years ago... lol =3

Hardware drivers not certified by the Microsoft lab will not install. No longer can folks dismiss the nag screen to run some bespoke piece of hardware.

Again, that's been the case since Windows 7. You have to go out of your way to boot the system in "Test Mode" to install an unsigned driver. Either that, or use Zadig to self-sign the driver. (Maybe they're no longer allowing that?)

Signatures were enforced only for 64-bit drivers in Windows 7, but Windows 10 enforces them for all drivers.

The policy is covered fairly well:

https://windowsforum.com/threads/windows-driver-signing-bala...

We won't know the actual collateral damage till the update is released. =)

There is nothing in that article saying anything about any upcoming requirements. Also it is written by a ChatGPT bot account, so it would be an invalid source even if it did.

The only update even mentioned in that article is "Windows 10, version 1607 (the Anniversary Update released in August 2016)". In case you haven't noticed, that happened 9 years ago...

Not sure if it potentially will break the Win11 reboot unsigned install method:

https://youtu.be/ETqvtZomqV8?si=-gd34UzaLNDNNDc7&t=50

If at some point I can recall the interview from earlier this year, than I will post a link. Otherwise, we will both have to wait and see. Best regards. =3

What is "it" that might break something? There is nothing that is going to happen. The AI-slop you linked doesn't mention anything that is going to happen. It's just a summary of changes that have happened in the past and a list of pros and cons of the driver signing requirement from more than a decade ago. There is nothing to "wait and see" for.

It goes well beyond strict USB-C port WHCP compliance rules if I recall correctly, and is not about just banning old WinRing 0 nuisance drivers ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_O5JtBqODA ).

I can't put any significant time into a proper search right now, but if I recall the interview I'll post a URI. Have a great day. =3

The copycats are free to write thier own drivers though? They could even open source them. Why should they get to steal them from FDTI?

I do agree the cost of the chips are insane however, they're ultimately worth paying for because of the driver support and 'just works' factor.

> copycats are free to write thier own drivers though?

Sure, anyone paying for a Microsoft certified hardware driver, USB PID allocation, and cert fees every year... Everyone else is not allowed in the OS we paid for...

It is a decades old serial port emulation chip... Racketeering with a computer should still be illegal. =3

They're not stealing anything.

I can kinda see where the idea of "copyrighting a number" makes sense when you're talking about a number that's multiple kilobytes in size, but trying to stake a legal claim to one of the 65536 possible 16-bit numbers is just wrong imo.

Indeed, the USB standards body prevented allocated company VID reuse, and thus greatly simplified identifying the correct hardware. There is also additional generic information like company name (often Trademarked) or serial number that may be queried from many devices as well.

If it were free or cheap, than people would have just started another domain squatting business. That could have been far worse. =3

Good, FR. Then you can send it back to who you bought it from. All vendors should do this.

The issue is (as I understand it) that some early supply chain distributors either unwittingly bought shipments of counterfeit parts, or otherwise ended up stocking them as genuine. Then legitimate hardware manufacturers used them. And let's be upfront here, any part using FTDI USB interfaces is low volume hardware that's either indie or, like, niche scientific gear. These are not chips you use when you have a 20-person hardware procurement department with the time to do a deep dive into every shipment of every component. These are chips you use when you're used to serial ports and have had USB foisted upon you and just want to sell the thing you built.

Sending it back only punishes the OEM you bought the weird niche thing off, and they likely had no indication that the chips they paid genuine prices for were counterfeit. If they try to get a refund from Alibaba or DigiKey or whoever, they'll politely be told to fuck off, if they get a response at all.

I totally understand why FTDI chose to take this path, but I also think it was a poor choice overall and I now avoid FTDI products (which back in the day I happily used, before all this) just in case I get caught up in the BS.

Cisco use these chips inside their switches, they are all over the place. I still think this is good, I buy them from RS, any authorised distributor will not tell you to 'fuck off', if they do please forward it to FTDI. If you're buying off Alibaba or eBay then that's on you. Sorry.

Penalizing FTDI for the OEM's negligence in not properly securing their supply chain? That's absurd. It is 100% the responsibility of the OEM to vet their suppliers to ensure that they know what's going into their product.

Not all FTDI series are faked. Only the most popular FT232 as far as I know.

Same for ST. Only the STM32F103 is a well known bad actor in the market.

> Only the most popular FT232 as far as I know.

Specifically, the FT232RL - a simple USB-to-serial chip. (And many of the clones are actually quite high quality.) As far as I'm aware, the FT2232H - a more complex USB to various-serial-and-parallel-protocols chip - hasn't had a counterfeiting problem, although I believe WCH has made some compatible parts.

The STM32F103(C8) situation is pretty funny too. Most of the companies making clones have long since moved on from outright counterfeits and have started manufacturing their own more-or-less-compatible XYZ32F103 microcontrollers (e.g. GD32F103, AT32F103, APM32F103, CH32F103, HK32F103, etc).

I’ve always been curious why there’s no generic USB serial chip. It seems like the most obvious thing in the world. I’ve noticed ESP32 boards tend to come with one of two proprietary chips, with their own drivers. Do you know why this isn’t all standard?

As someone mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the USB CDC drivers (the closest thing to a "generic USB serial" interface) on Windows were buggy for a very long time, so vendors avoided it. It'd be feasible to make one now, but there's no compelling reason for vendors to change, either.

The generic CDC class does not support high-speed bit-bang JTAG modes. Most ESP32 chips have a built in boot-loader for normal 3.3v UART protocols.

Retro computer eMMC memory-recovery hardware like the xgecu T76 is a USB3.0 device with built in FPGA and gpio voltage-level-shifters. It may eventually solve a lot of the hobby diagnostic/recovery tool issues, but the Beta software is currently Windows only. There is a FOSS project that should port to Linux and MacOS systems soon:

https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/minipro.git

Keep in mind, the software is still being built, but I'd keep an eye open for full-speed JTAG support releases in the next year or so. YMMV Best regards =3

minipro already runs on macOS and Linux. There's better tools out there for general-purpose IO, though - the Glasgow Explorer [1] is probably best in class, for instance. (Although one place where MiniPro-type devices outperform it is in interacting with old EEPROMs which require >5V Vpp.)

[1]: https://glasgow-embedded.org/

In my experience the f103 clones fix silicon bugs and some even have improved peripherals (like i2c)

Problem is that they still using the ST HAL which is not aware of the fixes in the background.

90% of the standard stuff will work. But as soon as you dig into the exotic modes bad things will happen.

I _do_ happen to have one laying around from another project, weirdly enough. I've never done FPGA work though, when you say it's compatible with Vivado, what does that mean in practice? I can configure an AMD FPGA, or something more?

Vivado, along with expensive adaptors, supports some JTAG dongles that are just FT2232 with an EEPROM that contains USB descriptors that Vivado recognizes and treats as a (some low cost onboard adaptor for Digilent boards, IIRC) supported adapter. https://gist.github.com/rikka0w0/24b58b54473227502fa0334bbe7...

If you like FT2232, you’ll love the Tigard board that takes a FT2232H and adds level shifters and is basically as tricked out as you can make a FTDI adapter. https://github.com/tigard-tools/tigard

Vivado offers some embedded debugging and logic analyzer infrastructure, which allows you to tap into signals within the design and monitor them from the PC. (For instance, the Memory Interface Generator will report its initialisation status to the PC and if something failed it will tell you what). This is done over JTAG, and Vivado will only support that when using a select few JTAG dongles.

If you're happy to create your own debugging infrastructure (which isn't that hard - almost all FPGAs have at least two dedicated IR scancodes specifically for user applications) then you can use any JTAG dongle supported by OpenOCD.

I think they mean it can be flashed into a programer/jtag interface compatible with vivado. If you want to get started with fpga, may I recommend 1bitsquared.com 's products

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