To all you fellow firmware engineers out there, this is a heads up that the ATMEL-ICE Jtag dongle comes with a jtag connector that is backwards from what you’d expect!
After spending a few minutes scratching my head as to why the ATMEL-ICE did not communicate with a board when the SAM-ICE communicated just fine, I knew the problem had to be with the dongle. Sure enough, a few searches on the internet turned up a few posts on some AVR web sites like this one that explains the bad design.
The work around is simply to rotate the ribbon cable connector 180 degrees and the jtag will start working, hopefully nothing got shorted too bad in the mean time …
The worst part is that is apparently a known problem going back a couple years and Atmel is still shipping the wrong design, and not a word on the Atmel web site !
Note that the Atmel-Ice retails around ~$50 while the Atmel-SAM-ICE retails over ~$100.
