Dedicated AVR Bootloader for Performance Improvement of Prototyping Process

M. Lewandowski, T. Orczyk, P. Porwik (Univ. of Silesia, Poland)

This paper presents a new bootloader for Atmel’s AVR ATMega microcontroller family. Presented solution compared to Optiboot is smaller and faster, leaving programmer more flash space, and reducing time required to upload, or to update firmware of the microcontroller. Concept of bootloader made the Arduino so popular, due to removing a need for specialized programming device in the prototyping stage. However, the original idea of bootloader was to enable end-user or less qualified service personnel to update firmware of the final product/embedded device.