Hi all, I have been searching all day on a solution to my problem, or to find out if I totally screwed up my first design. I designed my own board with a Cyclone II processor and an EPCS4 configuration device. I have a 10-pin header on the board set up for Active Serial configuration and I have successfully downloaded my FPGA design which includes a NIOS processor. My problem is that I have been unable to figure out how to run or download my NIOS program from the Nios II Eclipse IDE. I created a simple hello world application using my SOPC configuration file, and it successfully compiled into a .elf binary. Do I have to have a JTAG interface to download a NIOS program? The flash programmer wants a JTAG interface and the Quartus programmer only allows me to program .pof files. Is there some way to combine the Nios .elf into my Quartus .pof and program through the AS interface?

Hi, happy new year 2011, best wishes ! To download NIOS II program into flash, with a default scheme, you need JTAG connection. (This is the simpliest way). I think there is a way to store a program in one portion of EPCS, but i am not sure if it is possible and if it is, it will not be obvious. ++

I am trying to avoid redesigning and rebuilding my PCB with a jtag header. The solution I am working on right now is converting my .elf to a .hex and setting this .hex as the non-default initialization file for an onchip ram in SOPC builder. The only other references I have found are using elf2flash and sof2flash but the flash programmer needs a jtag connection as well so I can't program the flash files.

from http://www.altera.com/literature/ug/ug_nios2_flash_programmer.pdf --- Quote Start --- nios2-flash-programmer --epcs --base=0x02100000 epcs_controller.flash Programs an EPCS device based at address 0x02100000 with input file epcs_controller.flash. --- Quote End --- You should make a service request on Altera web site. You will have better answers.

Thanks for trying so far, but the flash programmer is useless without a jtag interface. I have created a .hex file from my NIOS .elf and I found out I can use Quartus's convert menu to combine the sof and hex into a pof which can be programmed. Now I'm working on making the NIOS program do something that will show me if it's running or not, since there is no way to run the program directly from the Nios IDE.

--- Quote Start --- the flash programmer is useless without a jtag interface --- Quote End --- Yes, this is true. My bet is that you'll also have to modify the default bootloader for the EPCS controller in your Nios II SoPC Builder system. It must be changed to load/copy the software from a fixed location in the EPCS device in order for your strategy to work. The default bootloader expects the software to follow the hardware in the EPCS device. Alternately, you could create a reasonably small onchip memory, point the reset address of your processor at it instead, and write your own simplified EPCS bootloader. - I've attached some sample code that I have used for similar purposes in the past. Best Regards, -- slacker [UPDATE: If not obvious, it is NOT possible to run code directly from an EPCS device.]

Configuring NIOS processor through AS interface

15 Replies

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
15 years ago
You can write a microprogram which :
- verify that there is a "good" program in flash memory.
- if not good program, execute instructions from UART which fills FLASH with a "good" program. And execute it.
- if good program (with a flag, signature...), simply execute it.

Good thread !
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
15 years ago
Thanks all for the help. I'm going to have to wait until next week to work on this some more but I'll be thinking about it in the meantime.

The biggest problem with generating small code is that I need to be able to output to a HD44780 LCD controller. Everything else is for the most part basic IO reading.
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
15 years ago
Been working on this again all day today. I created a 16k onchip RAM and set the non-default initialization file to nios.hex. I set the Nios cpu reset location to this onchip ram.

In the NIOS EDS I compiled a very simple program that uses IOWR_ALTERA_AVALON_PIO_DATA() to write to an output PIO that I also have set up in SOPC builder. After compiling the program I run the mem_init_install target to create nios.hex.

Then I rebuild the project in Quartus and according to the Fitter RAM Summary the nios.hex file is being included.

Then I program my Cyclone II in active serial mode using the Quartus Programmer.

None of my PIO output pins will change value like they are supposed to from the NIOS program. Is there an extra step that I am not doing? I haven't been able to find any documentation on this method whatsoever except for a few vague forum posts that don't mention anything that I haven't already done.
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
15 years ago
Haven't updated this for a while and I'm not sure if anyone is still following..

My NIOS is working perfect! I am able to read and write characters through a uart and process them as commands or display them on a LCD.

My code compiles to a 4408 byte file, leaving 17kB still free. I am pretty confident I will be able to fit the rest of my design in the onchip memory.
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
15 years ago
Hello,

I am missing the step that brought your system into work finally? Can you please add a few statements? Was it only software error or did you also have a systematic or handling error?

Regards, Günter

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Configuring NIOS processor through AS interface

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