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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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10 years ago

fast passive parallel configuration using NIOS II

Hello, I am new to cyclone FPGAs hardware design, I have been given a requirement for a hardware which has 4 Cyclone IV E devices. I already have set up active serial and JTAG configuration p...
Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
10 years ago

Yes, you could use your Nios FPGA as the micro to configure the other three non-Nios FPGAs from the CFI FLASH. You'll just have to decide how to boot the Nios FPGA. You won't be able to boot that from the same CFI FLASH without an external controller.

You can choose whether to connect the CFI FLASH's data pins directly to the configuration data lines (of the 3 non-Nios FPGAs) or not. Your Nios FPGA will have to control nCE and nCONFIG, and monitor nSTATUS and/or CONF_DONE, but whether you route the data directly from the FLASH or through the Nios FPGA is up to you. Going through gives you greater flexibility, but consumes more pins.

Happy New Year,

Alex