Cyclone 3 + EPCS controller (altasmi_parallel) + Alt Remote Update(altremote_update)

I would like to share my experience in implementing the remote update functionality in Cyclone 3 using EPCS controller(altasmi_parallel) and Alt Remote Update(altremote_update) Mega Functions. I would like to thank all the people who shared their knowledge on this forum to help others (including me in this case). I wouldn't have been able to implement this without the valuable experiences/advices from other members.

I didn't use NIOS II for implementing this in fpga.

We have a cyclone 3 FBGA based design at my work place, and we are using 80 of these systems (identical systems with the same functionality). Based on the need, we may need to modify the firmware on all the 80 boards. This prompted me to look into remote update functionality. Our systems have hardware/software interface with PC/104 as input output communication module, and ISA bus is used for data transfer.

Design has EP3c55F484 and EPCS16. So it can only hold one configuration file at a time.

I implemented both EPCS controller(altasmi_parallel) and Alt Remote Update(altremote_update) megafunctions in the design file and generated the Hexadecimal(Intel-Format) Output File(.hexout) file using Quartus II.

As one of the members explained before, all the bits need to be reversed before sending to EPCS.

if x is the byte from the hex file and d is the data to be written to EPCS controller(altasmi_parallel)

d(0) = x(7)

d(1) = x(6)

d(2) = x(5)

d(3) = x(4)

d(4) = x(3)

d(5) = x(2)

d(6) = x(1)

d(7) = x(0)

raw binary file and hexout file have the same information. We decided to use hexout, because it has check sum and other features which are helpful for verifying the data.

We used ISA bus to erase the memory first and then write the data to EPCS16 with a custom protocol and read the data back to compare with the hexout file. We made sure the formatted data from hex file and the data read back from the EPCS16 are the same.

as the configuration data in the EPCS starts at 0x00000 (21 bits) in this case, I didn't have to change anything for the Alt Remote Update(altremote_update). I sent a pulse to 'reconfig' signal in the altremote_update block to start the reconfiguration, and in two seconds FPGA is configured with new data in the EPCS16.

There are many ways to implement this functionality. I wanted to share my experience.