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Honored Contributor

15 years ago

Simulating Nios II in Active-HDL

Hi there,

I am following an application note (APNOTE 768) from Aldec to simulate Nios II in Active-HDL using a standard design example from Altera. The apnote was written for the legacy tools Nios II 9.1 IDE, not for the new tools Nios II 9.1 Software Build Tools for Eclipse. So I wasn't surprised the tutorial in the apnote did not work when I switched to the new tool.

But did anyone have any success making it work? I noted all the configurations mentioned in the tutorial regarding the Nios II 9.1 IDE and found the relevant configurations in the Eclipse, but that didn't seem to cut it.

Here is the link to the apnote:

http://support.aldec.com/knowledgebase/article.aspx?aid=000768

Thanks,

Hua

2 Replies

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
15 years ago
For IDE tools, when I set it as "ModelSim only, no hardware support", it will generate lots of DAT and SYM files, which initializes the memory in simulation tools.

But for Eclipse, it generates ELF and MAP files instead. Does ModelSim support to read those files as input for simulation?

Thanks,
Hua
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
15 years ago
I wonder which script generate the following response:

Post-processing to create RUN_ON_HDL_SIMULATOR_ONLY_ext_flash.flash
elf2flash --input=RUN_ON_HDL_SIMULATOR_ONLY_s2.elf --flash= --boot="C:/altera/91/ip/altera/nios2_ip/altera_nios2/boot_loader_cfi.srec" --outfile=RUN_ON_HDL_SIMULATOR_ONLY_ext_flash.flash --sim_optimize=1 --base=0x0 --end=0xFFFFFF --reset=0x0
if [ ! -d C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ]; then mkdir C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ; fi
Post-processing to create ext_flash.dat
flash2dat --infile=RUN_ON_HDL_SIMULATOR_ONLY_ext_flash.flash --outfile=C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim/ext_flash.dat --base=0x00000000 --end=0xFFFFFF --pad=0 --create-lanes=0 --width=8 --relocate-input=0x00000000
if [ ! -d C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ]; then mkdir C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ; fi
Post-processing to create ext_ram.dat
elf2dat --infile=RUN_ON_HDL_SIMULATOR_ONLY_s2.elf --outfile=C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim/ext_ram.dat --base=0x02000000 --end=0x20FFFFF --pad=0 --create-lanes=1 --width=32
if [ ! -d C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ]; then mkdir C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ; fi
Post-processing to create onchip_ram.dat
elf2dat --infile=RUN_ON_HDL_SIMULATOR_ONLY_s2.elf --outfile=C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim/onchip_ram.dat --base=0x02100000 --end=0x210FFFF --pad=0 --create-lanes=0 --width=32
if [ ! -d C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ]; then mkdir C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ; fi
Post-processing to create sdram.dat
elf2dat --infile=RUN_ON_HDL_SIMULATOR_ONLY_s2.elf --outfile=C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim/sdram.dat --base=0x01000000 --end=0x1FFFFFF --pad=0 --create-lanes=0 --width=32
rm -f C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim/contents_file_warning.txt
if [ ! -d C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ]; then mkdir C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ; fi
Post-processing to create ext_flash.sym
nios2-elf-nm -n RUN_ON_HDL_SIMULATOR_ONLY_s2.elf > C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim/ext_flash.sym
if [ ! -d C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ]; then mkdir C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ; fi
Post-processing to create ext_ram.sym
nios2-elf-nm -n RUN_ON_HDL_SIMULATOR_ONLY_s2.elf > C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim/ext_ram.sym
if [ ! -d C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ]; then mkdir C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ; fi
Post-processing to create onchip_ram.sym
nios2-elf-nm -n RUN_ON_HDL_SIMULATOR_ONLY_s2.elf > C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim/onchip_ram.sym
if [ ! -d C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ]; then mkdir C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim ; fi
Post-processing to create sdram.sym
nios2-elf-nm -n RUN_ON_HDL_SIMULATOR_ONLY_s2.elf > C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/NiosII_stratixII_2s60_standard_sim/sdram.sym
Post-processing to create onchip_ram.hex
elf2hex RUN_ON_HDL_SIMULATOR_ONLY_s2.elf 0x02100000 0x210FFFF --width=32 C:/G3/test/Nios_Sim/s2/onchip_ram.hex --create-lanes=0