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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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9 years ago

NIOS SDRAM and DE2 board boot

Hi, i have a niosii using SDRAM because the memory inside cyclone ii is not sufficient. All is fine. The hardware and the software run fine but now i would like that the board boots on this project when i switch on. I found some information to make this but using flash memory but i can't understand how to do this with "only" SDRAM. May be using EPCS circuit form the DE2 board and adding EPCS controller in niosii ? Someone could help me ?

Thanks

Eric

2 Replies

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

    Thank you for your reply. I carefully read the chapter describing "Application boot loading and programming system memory". But it still does not work as i expect so i think i misunderstand something ...

    I add EPCS serial flash controller in qsys and i select epcs_flash_controller in the nios2 reset vector and sdram_controller for the exception vector. I regenerate the sopc, restart the quartus compilation and program the device. In Eclipse, i set hal.linker.allow_code_at_reset, hal.linker.enable_alt_load, hal.linker.enable_alt_load_copy_rwdata, hal.linker.enable_alt_load_copy_exceptions and hal.linker.enable_alt_load_copy_rodata to 0. I select the bsp, right click and select make target/build and Select

    mem_init_generate, Click Build and add meminit.qip to the quartus project. I restart the quartus compilation ans program the device.

    After that in eclipse, i open the flash programmer in file/ New i select the sopcinfo file. Add the sof file and the elf file. Launch start.

    The command lines generated are :

    elf2flash --input="C:/Users/tanguy-e/Desktop/test-projet-M1/partie-5/software/test_nios2/test_nios2.elf" --output="C:/Users/tanguy-e/Desktop/test-projet-M1/partie-5/flash/test_nios2_epcs_flash_controller_0.flash" --epcs --after="C:/Users/tanguy-e/Desktop/test-projet-M1/partie-5/flash/premier_nios2_epcs_flash_controller_0.flash" --verbose

    nios2-flash-programmer "C:/Users/tanguy-e/Desktop/test-projet-M1/partie-5/flash/test_nios2_epcs_flash_controller_0.flash" --base=0x1001000 --epcs --sidp=0x1002050 --id=0x1 --timestamp=1466410227 --device=1 --instance=0 '--cable=USB-Blaster on localhost [USB-0]' --program --verbose --go

    The card seems to boot the nios2 processor but not the program because nothing happens.

    What i do wrong ?

    Thanks

    Eric