Forum Discussion

Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
16 years ago

Altera Cyclone III - Passive Serial mode

Hi, all.

I have a Altera Cyclone III device installed on board. In order to upgrade of FPGA software, I decided to use Passive Serial programming mode. The FPGA image file will be saved in a permanent storage device and the FPGA will be programmed by MCU. To save upgrade procedure time and avoid waste of memory I prefer to get a compressed file.

My question is - what FPGA filetype (format / extension) should I use ? Until now, I saw POFs and SOFs, which are suitable for Active Serial mode.

I am not a FPGA design engineer, but I need to advise our FPGA design engineer - what type of file to produce / build.

If you need more details, let me know.

Thanking you in advance.

mb

2 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    16 years ago

    Hello,

    for this way of fpga programming you can use .rbf (Raw Binary File) file format.go assignments -> settings -> device and pin options, then in programming files tab check "Raw Binary File (.rbf)" and in configuration tab check "Generate compressed bitstreams". This will generate compressed .rbf file during compilation.

    br