Honored Contributor
Honored ContributorYou have to think of your component as memory-mapped, not control signal based. Thus, you need to set up a register map for your custom component where setting a bit (or clearing a bit) performs the action you want, such as enabling a counter.
The easiest strategy for creating a custom component for use in Qsys is to start by creating the basic functionality of your component without worrying (yet) about the Avalon interface. Then create a simple register map for transferring data in (writes) and out (reads) using simple muxes and demuxes to do the address decoding, interfacing the data with your functional design. You'll also add the Avalon signals (address, readdata, writedata, etc.) to interface with the register map you've created. You'll also have one or more control and status registers as mentioned. See this online training for details: https://www.altera.com/support/training/course/oqsys3000.html
