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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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19 years ago

What have they done with NIOS II !?

Nice idea, having improved and flexible NIOS cores with additional

peripherals. But what happens to the design flow?

(1) The use of legacy sdk is not acceptable while looking for new features and improvements.

This seems to be a not well supported workaround that will die soon.

(2) Now the system libary will be build wihtin the NIOS IDE, resulting in long compilation times and

specially each new build checks the existing lib for update.

To reduce the turn-around time I'm now using the NIOS 2 SDK shell for the make command and the download command

to achieve adequate turn-around cycles.

(3) The application must be downloaded via JTAG - fast enough and o.k for lab use and development.

What about downloads in the field or the fab? A JTAG connection and the IDE installtion is required

on each computer (with NIOS1 and Germs, a serial terminal was enough).

(4) In general a JTAG interface is not available at component level (external interface). How

to download/upgrade SW without opening the box? Seems serial application interfaces like UART and Ethernet

are no longer supported and you have to write your own bootloader.

Have I missed anything?

Any feedback welcome!

1 Reply

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

    've just uploaded an assembly version of GERMS to the "Post your own tested IP" section of the forum.

    This version of GERMS uses Altera HAL and fits in a 1 KByte memory. It works best with the upcoming Nios II 6.0 release (coming out very soon) but can be made to work with older releases.

    We use this version of GERMS at Altera for internal testing of the CPU.

    Feel free to use it with the understanding that it is not supported by Altera.