solution for mcu to configure ALTERA FPGA

There is also a capability of "Remote System Update" (that basically gives you access to write to the EPCS through the internals of the FGPA and boot off a secondary location.

We have used both methods. If you hook the MCU directly to the SPI, make sure it has it's lines tristated when the FPGA is loading. It works, but there are contention issues you need to be careful with.

Remote System Update works, but there's no real simulation model, so you end up having a play with in a trail and error fashion to get it to work.

A wiki artical is available at:

http://www.alterawiki.com/wiki/epcs_based_remote_system_update_(rsu)_example_on_bemicro_sdk?gsa_pos=2&wt.oss_r=1&wt.oss=remote%20upgrade

When we did it, we basically gave the external MCU access to the RSU block registers directly though a UART interface. (that had some CRC validation)

Pete