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Rodo's avatar
Rodo
Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
4 years ago

MAX10, on-board RAM or ROM: What does memory initialization do?

Hi all, I'm playing with a BeMicroMAX10 that I've had for a while. Last time I used it was in Quartus web (free) v15, now using v21.1.0 (also free). I was getting an error at compile with error i...
YEan's avatar
YEan
Icon for Contributor rankContributor
4 years ago

Hi Rodo,

Do you have any updates on your question?

Thank you.

Best regards,

Ean

Rodo's avatar
Rodo
Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
4 years ago

updates?

  • YEan's avatar
    YEan
    Icon for Contributor rankContributor
    4 years ago

    Hi Rodo,

    I think that your issue has been resolved by sstrell.

    I'll now transition this thread to community support.
    If you have a new question, feel free to open a new thread to get the support from Intel experts.

    Thank you.

    Best regards,

    Ean

    • Rodo's avatar
      Rodo
      Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
      4 years ago
      1. I disagree. The answer from sstrell does not address the issue of why you would need the memory initialized. Although I thank sstrell for his time and effort. I haven't figure the stuff out yet but the answer seems to be in booting nios. Combining the elf file with the sof file to get a pof and program the pof where nios will boot and copy either some or all of the application to RAM. This copying seems to need the memory init option set. As I said earlier, not sure how the whole booting thing works yet. There are several options available. AN730 seems to talk about it. I also have some old notes about this but I'm not sure I'm gonna get into the flash IP and boot options yet. I'm still adding components to the platform designer and using the byte blaster option to program the max10. This program goes away after power down the kit because I'm not programming the flash with any boot option as discussed in AN730. It is slow going but steady. Thanks guys.
      • sstrell's avatar
        sstrell
        Icon for Super Contributor rankSuper Contributor
        4 years ago

        Memory initialization is useful for many things: test and debug, error insertion, source code and source data. It's also required if you are creating a ROM (vs. a RAM).

        Your initial question mentioned nothing about Nios, so I was answering based on just the use of memory blocks on their own in an FPGA design.