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YigalB1's avatar
YigalB1
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10 months ago
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How to instance SDRAM controller in DE10 Lite?

I am trying to fill the SDTAM chip on the DE10 Lite from Quartus, using a .mif file.

From what I read , the SDRAM is DDR4, yet in the IP catalog includes DDR2/DD3/LPDDR2 with UniPhy.

Which instance should be used for that?

I am not really sure why is that needed, since at this stage the FPGA is not part of the process, right?

The data that is written into the SDRAM is transferred from the host (Quartus) directly into the SDRAM chip.

Is that correct?

After this is done, the plan is to fill the DE10 Lite external SDRAM with content from Quartus command line.

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  • FvM's avatar
    FvM
    10 months ago
    Clearly ease of use. Works without installing JTAG stack (at least Standalone-Programmer) on the client computer.
    Altera/Intel RS232 UART IP uses AVMM interface which I don't need in basic HDL debug logic design. I have simple Rx and Tx code with fixed baudrate (921k) written from the scratch. There's no code I can send you as is, I'll check if I can extract something. There are however tons of UART code on the net.

11 Replies

  • sstrell's avatar
    sstrell
    Icon for Super Contributor rankSuper Contributor
    10 months ago

    No, you can't initialize an off-chip RAM with a .mif. That is for initializing on-chip RAM during device programming only.

  • YigalB1's avatar
    YigalB1
    Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
    10 months ago

    Thank you for clarifying. I was hoping to create some kind of automating a transfer of data from the host to the FPGA, few KB each time, and automatically getting back few bytes from the FPGA to the host, to allow usage of the FPGA as a tester: run a test based on the input data, and send back the results, so the host could compare expected vs actual results.

    Using the internal RAM could provide such a solution, but it seems no way to do this, but it looks like no way to do it.

    In this case implementing UART on the FPGA and using FTDI from the USB of the host to the GPIOs on the FPGA seems the only valid method. Is it?

    Thank you for answering.

    • FvM's avatar
      FvM
      Icon for Super Contributor rankSuper Contributor
      10 months ago
      I have test applications communicating with FPGA through JTAG and debug IP (Source&Probe and In-System Memory Content Editor). That's definitely possible. Nevertheless I switched to UART interface with newer designs.
      • YigalB1's avatar
        YigalB1
        Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
        10 months ago

        1) Why did you switch to UART? Performance? Ease of use?

        2) What UART did you use? The "RS232 UART" from the IP catalog?

        3) can you share your code for both options?