US Patent 10922068 Updating firmware for programmable integrated circuits in computing environments

Updating firmware in an programmable integrated circuit (IC) includes determining, using a processor of a computer, a base address register (BAR) of an accelerator card from a device data file, wherein the accelerator card includes a programmable IC and is connected to the computer via a communication bus, mapping, using the processor, a feature PROM and a flash programmer circuit of the programmable IC to local memory of the computer using the BAR, and reading, over the communication bus, the feature PROM on the programmable IC to determine a programming mode for programming an external flash memory coupled to the flash programmer circuit. Based on the programming mode and using the processor, firmware is provided to the flash programmer circuit on the programmable IC via the communication bus. The flash programmer circuit is configured to program the firmware into the external flash memory.