Are there any plans on implementing support for AVR XMega?
It seems a bit tricky to find a specification of the PDI protocol, but one thing is for sure. There aren’t many options when it comes to affordable programmers that support XMega. It would be an awsome feature for the Pololu USB AVR Programmer, which is a great product in other regards.
Hi Raven,
It took me a while to figure this out, until I read through AVR1005: Getting started with XMEGA, but did you notice that you can program the AVR XMega chips over the PDI interface using the AVRISP mkII (currently $34 on Digikey)? I was very hesitant to even look at the XMegas when I thought I would need to shell out a couple of hundred dollars for a new programmer, it was a nice surprise that I could just use one I already had!
-Adam
Thanks, yes I am aware that later revisions of the mkII supports programming PDI. However here in Sweden it’s not $34 but rather twice that, and getting it from the US with the added shipping it will still be around that amount.
I got the Pololu USB AVR Programmer as a very affordable way to start out with AVR and it would be awsome if it could support PDI as well. I’m mainly into PIC, so getting more programmers for AVR is not really what I want. I think PDI support would make the already hot Pololu programmer even hotter 
Hello.
Thank you for the suggestion. This might make an interesting future project, but our drawing board is already quite full of projects, so it’s not something we’d be working on any time soon.
- Ben
I just want to inform you that there is now code available for an Open Source XMEGA PDI Programmer, so working code is out there but it is aimed at a development board from AVR so it is not widely available in any product yet.
I can’t stress enough what an advantage this would be for your inexpensive AVR programmer 
It would give you head lines all over the AVR community I can assure you.
