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Altera_Forum
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13 years ago

NIOS II and Cyclone III Remote Update

Have spent several days now searching and reading and think I am nearly there... but not quite. I am using the NIOS II core with SOPC builder. I use Quartus II for the FPGA image. This is a projec...
Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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13 years ago

What is happening is the bootloader in your second sof is pointing to the firmware at 0. The bootloader will look for the size of the firmware (sof) and search for the start of the elf just after it.

I have dealt with this problem before, but I don't have a great solution for you. I normally place my second firmware/software at a fixed address location well beyond my first firmware/software pair. After this, I modify a copy of the bootloader code to search for this new offset instead of starting at 0. When compiled, it will generate a new .hex file. This file needs to replace the one that your second firmware image is using to boot the software.

The stock bootloader software is located in your quartus install directory. Search for boot_loader.S and you should find it. (there is a makefile you can use with the NIOS II command console app if I remember right.

I wish I knew how do make this process easier. If anyone else knows of an easier way, I'd be interested too.