Industry trends for IC programmers

Development trends

Asia has long been the main supplier of economical IC programmers worldwide: major players include XELTEK and MaxWiz in China, and Advantech, Hi-Lo, Leaptronix and Yanyee in Taiwan. Early programmable ICs were mostly EPROMs erased by ultraviolet light, and volumes were small.

In recent years programmable ICs such as EEPROM, Flash, single-chip controllers, PLD, SPROM and NAND Flash have appeared one after another, allowing information, communication, home appliance and handheld products to improve dramatically in size, function, power consumption and reliability — partly thanks to these programmable ICs. To keep new-product information confidential, or to keep inventory flexible, chip makers ship these ICs with blank data areas; the latest control program and data are written with an IC programmer at the very last moment before assembly. This is a necessary step even later than back-end IC testing, usually carried out by the final manufacturer — which is why it is a niche that is rarely discussed.

Programmable ICs are becoming ever more widespread, which is changing the IC programmer landscape rapidly. China is set to become the world's factory, and high-volume programming of the two main IC categories — MCU and Flash — will be the decisive battleground.

The MaxWiz WizPro200 series IC programmers give factories efficient, stable programming support and better cost for volume production. They are especially convenient for in-circuit and panel-level stand-alone programming, are simple to operate, and can be customised to your requirements.