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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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14 years ago

Programming a flash device with the parallel flash loader

Hello

I need to program a flash device using the parallel flash loader megafunction. The flash is not a configuration device, but is rather used to boot a processor up.

The problem is that Quartus will only program with .hex files. The file that I have available is a .bin file. I have tried very hard to find some sort of converter (bin2hex.exe is an old app and doesn't work on 64-bit windows) to no avail. Does anyone know of another way that I can provide quartus with the flash image without it being in .hex format. Or even a program that I can use to make the conversion?

Thanks

1 Reply

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    14 years ago

    The objcopy utility can probably do that. It is part of the GNU toolchain, which is something that you may already have installed. In a cross-compiling toolchain the file name would normally begin with a target prefix, e.g. nios2-elf-objcopy or arm-eabi-objcopy etc. A bin to hex conversion is normally architecture-independent, so it doesn't really matter which toolchain to use.

    I'm not sure if objcopy and Quartus II programmer speak the same .hex, but most likely they do.