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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
14 years agoRaw binary file format
Hi all,
I'm looking for documentation for the Raw binary file format and Tabular Text file format. Is this freely available, or will I have to talk to Altera directly?15 Replies
- Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
Hi Dimitrios.
I have since given up on VTR and Altera products altogether for my thesis. I have now switched to Xilinx. As to your question, have you come across the net2vqm tool? It doesn't convert the VTR output to sof right away, but it re-introduces Quartus back into the CAD flow. - Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
Hello
Thank you for your quick response. Did you reached to compile a project with vpr and then go back to Quartus to generate the bitstream. I have spent lot of time searching about the structure of the sof file and now I am trying to synthesise with Odin II, optimise with ABC and place & route with VPR. The above tools are embedded in a CAD flow called VTR. Best Regards Dimitrios Agiakatsikas - Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
I never attempted to run the entire CAD flow from HDL design to bitstream.
When I experimented with the tool, I concluded that it did not serve my purpose and so I stopped using it. VPR generates 3 files: .place for placement .route for routing .net for the final netlist after the P&R algorithm runs. There's a tool created by the EECG group at the University of Toronto which converts .net files to .vqm This tool is the nettovqm tool. (net-to-vqm) - Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
Thanks, Socrates. Since SPI is usually msb first (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/serial_peripheral_interface_bus#data_transmission), does that mean the RBF file contents should go out LSB first?
--- Quote Start --- RBF is just a simple binary format, that You can upload using simple serialization mechanism (e.g. SPI: SCK->DCLK, MOSI->DATA0). Except You need to do a byte-reverse before sending. --- Quote End --- - Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
Found the answer (http://quartushelp.altera.com/current/mergedprojects/reference/glossary/def_rbf.htm). It is LSB first.