DE0 Board

Hi Jacob,

I had the same problem. I went through the Nios II Hardward Development Tutorial step-by-step and, once the hardware wad defined in Quartus II, I assigned the clock and LED pins to the DE0 pin numbers from the DE0 user manual. The basic program ran without any problems. I am using that as a starting point and in the process of trying to add the SDRAM controller to the Nios II core to interface the DE0's SDRAM chip. Note, I am using the standard, free Altera software, not the University Program Design Suite.

Word of caution: If you are using the free versions of the software, a message box appears when you download the FPGA configuration to the DE0 board with the title "OpenCore Plus Status". Any downloaded program will only run as long as this message box remains open. Also, when the message box is open, both the Programmer and the Quartus II windows are locked in place until the cancel button is clicked.

I (think) I attached a default assignments document (assignment_defaults.qdf) that has most (but not all) of the DE0 pin assignment directives in it. To use it, wait until you have your hardware defined and run Processing >> Start >> Start Analysis & Elaboration" ( the first step following Figure 1-16 in the tutorial. This will generate a .qsf file. You can make the pin assignments by pasting them from the attached file into the .qsf file as long as you used the same signal names (I mostly used the ones in the DE0 documentation). When the file is saved, the pin assigner will automatically make to assignments, you don't have to run any thing (it is as if it is just sitting there in the background waiting for you to tell it what to do). If all the pins are not assigned, check the signal names to make sure thy match. Once the pins are assigned, do a full build which will generate the .sof file you are looking for.

Good luck, Jacob.