questions about flash in nios

Hi,

1. Yes, you can store any data application (software image) in the unused memory portion in the flash device. As long these data are not overlapping the configuration data. The data application (software image) can be store after the last byte of configuration data.

2. You can refer to the FPGA uncompressed .rbf size to know the space require to store the configuration data in flash device. Refer to the FPGA datasheet for the uncompressed .rbf size.

3. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with NIOS. Perhaps you can refer to the Nios flash programmer user guide to start off.

https://www.altera.com/content/dam/altera-www/global/en_us/pdfs/literature/ug/ug_nios2_flash_programmer.pdf

4. You can use Quartus II programmer to read and write data into the flash device.