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Altera_Forum
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10 years ago

nios2 + 8GB DDR3 /DDR3 SDRAM Controller with UniPHY

I'm trying to finish a simple test with a nios2/f + 1Mb on-chip memory + DDR3 controller.

The DDR3 controller is connected to 8Gb DDR3 controller, which I took straight from the board manufacturer's reference/test design and works great.

However (understandably) when you add a NIOS processor it complains with "Address width above 32 bits are not supported for NIOSII) since the NIOS will not use anything above 4Gb.

Question# 1 - how do I chop down the DDR in such way that QSYS is happy with it?

Question# 2 - how I can "share" this memory among several processors, ie make it behave as if it was 4x2GB pieces?

Thank you

7 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    10 years ago

    You can try to use Address Span Extender to configure the 2GB window for each Nios.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    10 years ago

    Hi Mike,

    Thank you. I think that's exactly what is needed.

    However when I add all those to the *same* qsys project, it still complains about the address range. I believe qsys uses the biggest address range as a parameter so therefore I will have to break this down into two or more qsys projects.

    Is making the NIOS a subsystem of the main project a solution? Is there any way to accomplish this inside qsys without having to rewire everything through verilog/top?
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    10 years ago

    As far as I am concerned, you might marry my sister now brother, thank you!

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    10 years ago

    You see, after some haggling to erase the other errors, the remaining are one for each NIOS: "Address width above 32 bits are not supported for Nios II".

    So QSYS with NIOS is limited to 32 bit addressing internally no matter what.

    I tried building a subsystem but it seems QSYS does not treat subsystems any differently, it's just a visual aid.

    What I ended up doing is to write them out as two separate qsys blocks and then join them through a pipeline bridge through verilog/top.

    Let's see if it works!
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    10 years ago

    That does not make sense. Did you make sure that the address span extender slave word address width always is 29 bits or lesser?

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    10 years ago

    Yes I did. I think the reason is because the NIOS ends up having a 32+ bit base address and qsys does not like it, even though NIOS itself wont use it.

    I did that breakdown and encapsulated the 8GB memory into one qsys project and then created 8 x 1 Gb extenders with manual offsets, which were then exported for happy nioses to digest.

    These were then joined through verilog/top. See attachments...

    It seems to work...