Honored ContributorHello,
I have instantiated a JTAG UART core in a NIOS II running on a DE1-SoC board. Can I assign the TX and RX pins from the UART to pins on the GPIO expansion header? This is to create a serial console with my host computer over putty. Thanks
Honored ContributorNo, you can't. The JTAG UART allows you to interface to your system via your USB-Blaster, without the need for dedicated I/O pins. Typically (perhaps exclusively - I'm not sure) you use the 'nios2-console' console to give you access to this UART, which operates over JTAG.
If you want a real UART, presented to pins, you need to use a 'true' UART core. Referring to the 'embedded peripherals ip user guide' (https://www.altera.com/en_us/pdfs/literature/ug/ug_embedded_ip.pdf), look at the 'UART Core' or '16550 UART Core'. These will present Tx/Rx I/O, for connection to a standard serial cable, for use with a console. Whilst you're in that document, read up on the JTAG UART and it's uses too. Cheers, AlexHonored ContributorRight, the JTAG UART core has no RX and TX "pins" respectively bit signals but 8-bit RX and TX ports with handshake signals.
