Honored ContributorI'm developing a project based on Nios II CPU, and would like to integrate the hardware (.sof) and software (Nios C/C++ application) into a bit stream file. However, I don't know how to do with it. Does anyone have such experience? Thanks a lot!
Honored ContributorI have never done that before, but I wonder why you would want to do such a thing ! Do u want to use the bit-stream to burn the device in one go ??
Honored ContributorYes. I know I can also program the device via Nios Flash Programmer; however, I would like to whether it can also be integrated into one bit-stream, just as Xilinx FPGA. Does anyone have some idea about it?
Honored ContributorMy understanding is you can only do that if your software is accommodated as mif file so that it is part of firmware.
I believe xilinx can't integrate software and firmware into one bitstream because where is the software stored then?Honored ContributorHonored ContributorHi, Xinjia,
I've tried your way. But I still have a question about this issue. If my software are not all located in on-chip ram, then it seems not work. In my understanding, this way does not fit for the software located off-chip memory. Do I miss something? ThanksHonored ContributorThe bit stream can only configure the FPGA itself, not the external components. What you need for that is a bootloader that will recover the software and copy it to the external memory. That is what the EPCS bootcode does from the flash memory.
Honored ContributorThanks, Daxiwen.
I have found some documentation about EPCD bootload, but I did not find how to bootload from a CF card. Do you have some ideas? Thanks!Honored ContributorDo you mean read a file from a compact flash card, put it in memory and run the software? You'll need a bootloader a bit more complex than the EPCS one, or even the examples in the application note (http://www.altera.com/literature/an/an458.pdf?gsa_pos=1&wt.oss_r=1&wt.oss=nios%20boot).
Did you have a look at redboot (http://sourceware.org/redboot/)? It could do the trick but I don't know how easy it is to adapt to the design. It seems that you need to set up an Ecos kernel first.
