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I have changed my focus again, I am now thinking that my "file.rbf" only contains the hardware (.sof) and not both .sof and firmware (.elf).
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That sounds like a reasonable hypothesis.
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Forgot to mention that I only use on-chip memory (no external memory)
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Do you have a .mif file (memory initialization file) or a hex file?
Quartus will use the .mif file to initialize the memory, and that should be included in the .rbf file.
If however you have been using JTAG to download the software image, the RAM might be blank from the hardware perspective, and then the NIOS IDE downloads the firmware (software binary into the on-chip RAM).
You can test that hypothesis by downloading the .rbf and then using the NIOS IDE to access your processor. If that works identically to JTAG downloading of the hardware, then you have narrowed down your problem.
I don't use NIOS in my designs, so can't offer any experience with that particular flow. However, I have used .hex files to initialize MAX II UFM memory. When I was debugging that design, I looked in the .pof file (using TextPad to view the binary bytes) to see that the UFM memory initialization file was being included directly (I could see the byte pattern I was testing with in the .pof).
Cheers,
Dave
Honored Contributor
