Forum Discussion

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

Loading Nios II program on onchip memory.

Hi there, I have Nios II system with custom peripheral. There is no external flash to store my program. I'm loading and testing my program through JTAG interface. I was wondering if there is ...
Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
16 years ago

If you compile your software first, then compile your firmware using Quartus, the software will automatically be programmed in the the configuration stream. Cyclone I uses M4K blocks which can be initialized during configuration. Just make sure you do things in that order:

1 - Compile software - this generates a <memory_name>.hex file that is used by the assembler and added into the bitstream.

2 - Compile your Quartus project - The assembler will configure the RAM to be initialized using the contents of the .hex file.

Also, if you just want to change your software and not recompile the firmware you can just run the Processing->Update Memory Initialization File option. This would also be done automatically if you have the "Smart Compilation" enabled for the project.

Jake