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Dear All,
I am in need of a device using which we should be able to load a firmware into large number of controllers at a time.
e.g.: suppose I have 100 controllers to be loaded with firmware, I should be able to plug the controllers into slots (atleast 15) at one end and the device will be attached to PC at the other end from which it take the firmware.
Just a note - what application will you use for the updates?
You have to check the limits for supported number of serial ports. Some applications only supports COM1 .. COM4.
And some applications may not allow multiple copies to run at the same time.
And running 15 individual instances of an application can be very confusing, and lead to units being missed.
The best solution is to write your own application to handle all the serial ports in a single interface, with a progress bar and red/green indication for each individual connection. Possibly at the same time having an interface for printing a serial number label and writing a log entry to a database with timestamp, serial number and downloaded firmware version.
With a custom application, you could also modify each binary before download, to make the binary contain the serial number of the unit - or possibly download the serial number into EEPROM.
Perhaps you should be looking at companies like this:
http://www.iss.se/?id=418
Or, if you're not up for investing in that yourself, outsource (subcontract) the task.
Remember: your entire production output will depend on this - do you really want to homebrew it with, apparently, no prior experience...?