Forum Discussion

KenBee's avatar
KenBee
Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
2 years ago

using .sof file

Simple problem. Trying to to update an old design after a 15 year break. Using USBBlaster 11 with EPCS16 with quartus 13. I can read the contents of the EPCS16 so that is good but the programmer will not pick up the .sof file. It only finds .pof. Programmer is set to active serial and USBBlaster. Guess I have missed something. Regards KenBee

4 Replies

  • _AK6DN_'s avatar
    _AK6DN_
    Icon for Frequent Contributor rankFrequent Contributor

    EPCS16 is an eeprom, you don't say what kind of FPGA device you are using.

    That being said, the .sof file is the program image of the FPGA itself, not the eeprom.

    You should be able to load the .sof file to the FPGA directly using the Quartus programmer tool.

    But it will be transient, and lose its contents on a power cycle.

    Normally the .sof would be embedded into a .jic which can be used to program the EPCS eeprom device via the programmer.

    The Quartus tools can be used to build the .jic from the generated .sof file.

  • FvM's avatar
    FvM
    Icon for Super Contributor rankSuper Contributor

    You apparently have an AS interface on your board. In this case, .pof file can be generated during compilation flow, but has to be enabled in device settings. Alternatively .sof can be converted to .pof (for AS programming method) or .jic (for JTAG indirect programming through FPGA JTAG interface) with programming file conversion tool. JTAG indirect programming is preferred in most systems because one interface can be used for debugging and flas programming purposes.

  • We do not receive any response from you to the previous answer that I have provided. This thread will be transitioned to community support. If you have a new question, feel free to open a new thread to get the support from Intel experts. Otherwise, the community users will continue to help you on this thread. Thank you