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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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16 years ago

rpd file

Hello all,

Let me start with an explanation of what we are trying to do here. We have an embedded system with a Freescale processor and a Cyclone II device with an EPCS4 equivalent serial flash configuration device. We used to program this configuration device with the JTAG interface and the .jic file. It worked flawlessly. Now, we wanna have the option to remotely update the FPGA firmware by having the Freescale MCU writes to the configuration device and then perform a reset to let FPGA reload the new firmware. We've generated the .rpd file from the .pof file, but when compare this .rpd file with what we read back from the configuration device. They are not exactly the same, even with bit reverse. Any suggestion what we're doing wrong here?

5 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    16 years ago

    So let's get this straight:

    1 - You program the EPCS4 device using JTAG and the .jic file that you created from a pof.

    2 - You create a .rpd file from a pof.

    3 - The contents of the EPCS4 device and the bit-reversed version of the .rpd file don't match.

    Are you using compression in both cases?

    How different are the files?

    Have you tried generating a .rbf file directly from the assembler?

    Jake
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    16 years ago

    I have made similar observations before. When I converted a SOF to RPD, the result was not the same as reading the flash back after using JIC. I never managed to get the RPD to actually work.

    In the end, I used sof2flash from NIOS EDS to convert the SOF to S-Record. This also did not match the data read back after using JIC, but the FPGA worked fine when the flash was programed with this file.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    16 years ago

    Problem solved...As Jakobjones suggested, the .rpd file was generated from a compressed .jic file, therefore, it looks different with the readback value from the EPCS4 with bit reverse. On my Quartus II setting, compression is default..I changed it and did the same, everything is ok.

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

    I find the same thing. I dont have the luxury of disabling compression! What I have noticed is that it has something to do with 0x18 values in the rpd file that is removed. It would be nice to have altera publish something on this...