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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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21 years ago

Custom cyclone board & Nios?

Hello;

I am new to this board and new to Nios. I have however, worked for a few years with FPGAs and embedded systems.

I have designed a board with three cyclones and one EPC16 with JTAG and byteblaster interface. All algorithm, interfaces, etc. have been developed in VHDL. Now I need to add extra capabilities such as USB, UART, and Ethernet to this board ( I can do it physically with a lot of IO expansion possibilities).

So, I am wondering; IF I can dump a small NIOS footprint to one of my Cyclones, I should be able to add those extra features with much less overhead, and development time.

My question is, is this at all possible?

Please forgive me for being so direct.

2 Replies

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

    --- Quote Start ---

    originally posted by afshin+oct 27 2005, 02:53 pm--><div class='quotetop'>quote (afshin @ oct 27 2005, 02:53 pm)</div>

    --- quote start ---

    hello;

    i am new to this board and new to nios. i have however, worked for a few years with fpgas and embedded systems.

    i have designed a board with three cyclones and one epc16 with jtag and byteblaster interface. all algorithm, interfaces, etc. have been developed in vhdl. now i need to add extra capabilities such as usb, uart, and ethernet to this board ( i can do it physically with a lot of io expansion possibilities).

    so, i am wondering; if i can dump a small nios footprint to one of my cyclones, i should be able to add those extra features with much less overhead, and development time.

    my question is, is this at all possible?[/b]

    --- quote end ---

    in general, yes. however, you didn&#39;t say how much space in what kind of cyclone, and how much memory (ram and flash) is available to that nios. you&#39;re not getting tcp/ip support with just the internal cyclone memory; there&#39;s not enough. if you use ecos, you should probably be able to do it with about 512k flash and a 4-8 megs of ram (though i must admit that i have not tried to decrease the memory footprint of my ecos system; i&#39;ve got a 128mb sodimm to play with). if you use linux, you&#39;ll need more flash than the epc16 has, so you&#39;ll need an external flash chip, and probably more ram, and it might be overkill.

    the epc16 is tricky to use as a nios flash device, but it&#39;s possible; i&#39;ve done it. the simplest thing to do is define it as a new component in sopc (it is not a cfi flash), then use the memory map file to figure out where the open space past the end of your cyclone configurations is, round up to the next 16-byte-aligned address, and set your reset location there. sopc builder will complain about the reset address not being 0, but ignore it.

    <!--quotebegin-afshin@Oct 27 2005, 02:53 PM

    please forgive me for being so direct.

    --- Quote End ---

    Pertinent answers are usually obtained through impertinent questions. http://forum.niosforum.com/work2/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    21 years ago

    --- Quote Start ---

    originally posted by mike desimone+oct 28 2005, 11:52 am--><div class='quotetop'>quote (mike desimone @ oct 28 2005, 11:52 am)</div>

    --- quote start ---

    --- quote start ---

    originally posted by afshin@oct 27 2005, 02:53 pm

    hello;

    i am new to this board and new to nios. i have however, worked for a few years with fpgas and embedded systems.

    i have designed a board with three cyclones and one epc16 with jtag and byteblaster interface. all algorithm, interfaces, etc. have been developed in vhdl. now i need to add extra capabilities such as usb, uart, and ethernet to this board ( i can do it physically with a lot of io expansion possibilities).

    so, i am wondering; if i can dump a small nios footprint to one of my cyclones, i should be able to add those extra features with much less overhead, and development time.

    my question is, is this at all possible?

    --- quote end ---

    in general, yes. however, you didn&#39;t say how much space in what kind of cyclone, and how much memory (ram and flash) is available to that nios. you&#39;re not getting tcp/ip support with just the internal cyclone memory; there&#39;s not enough. if you use ecos, you should probably be able to do it with about 512k flash and a 4-8 megs of ram (though i must admit that i have not tried to decrease the memory footprint of my ecos system; i&#39;ve got a 128mb sodimm to play with). if you use linux, you&#39;ll need more flash than the epc16 has, so you&#39;ll need an external flash chip, and probably more ram, and it might be overkill.

    the epc16 is tricky to use as a nios flash device, but it&#39;s possible; i&#39;ve done it. the simplest thing to do is define it as a new component in sopc (it is not a cfi flash), then use the memory map file to figure out where the open space past the end of your cyclone configurations is, round up to the next 16-byte-aligned address, and set your reset location there. sopc builder will complain about the reset address not being 0, but ignore it.

    <!--quotebegin-afshin@Oct 27 2005, 02:53 PM

    please forgive me for being so direct.

    --- Quote End ---

    Pertinent answers are usually obtained through impertinent questions. http://forum.niosforum.com/work2/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif

    <div align='right'><{post_snapback}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=10663)</div>

    [/b]

    --- Quote End ---

    I am using EP1c20f324c8, from what I understand I need to design another board for painless migeration, nevertheless, thank you for your insight.