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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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18 years ago

Remote system upgrade with AS of Stratix II and EPCS16

Hello,

I'm planning to use Stratix II (EP2S30) for a design, and want to have the option to remotely upgrade my firmware/Nios II software. Now, in the early design stages, I'm trying to see what hardware I need for that. I understand that no special pin settings / peripherals are needed to support remote upgrade, but I need a serial configuration device of the correct size.

The bitstream size of EP2S30 is about 9 MBit. I planned to use EPCS16, but it may not suffice with remote upgrade, because I will need at least 2 images (factory and application) - 18Mbit together, which won't fit into EPCS16.

My question is - is this computation correct, and I must use EPCS64 for remote upgrade with EP2S30 ? Can I *absolutely* rely on design compression to fit two images into EPCS16 ?

Thanks in advance,

Eli

3 Replies

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

    It is tight, but you could most likely get away with it..... BUT ....

    Unless your NIOS II code is all in the internal RAM of the FPGA memory, you will need additional space in the EPCS to store the NIOS II code that will get moved by the bootloader from the EPCS to something like SRAM or DRAM.

    Go with the 64 and be done with it.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    18 years ago

    Just use the EPCS64. I did a Stratix II EP2S130 design and we were able to fit 4 images (with compression of course).

    However, I would caution you on one other thing. The remote update functionality using AS devices can be tricky. I strongly encourage you to try your scheme on an existing development board. People often have a very difficult time using the altremote_update megacore. The Stratix II design I mentioned worked fine. The altremote_update core did not work as documented but it met our needs.

    In contrast, I currently have a Stratix II GX EP2S130 design where I'm trying to do the exact same thing. I have yet to successfully get remote update working on it.

    Anyway, just try it out before you buy off on it.

    Jake
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    18 years ago

    Thanks for the suggestions.

    Are you aware of any development / evaluation boards that come with a Stratix II and EPCS64 ?