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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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15 years ago

Partial device AS programming

I want to program 1.4MB compressed sof file into 2MB EPCS16 device by means of Active Serial mode of Quartus Programmer. The point is - I want to program only relevant flash sectors (up to address 160000H) and preserve the rest of the EPCS flash contest. So far I don't even now where to start - "convert programming files" tool insists on creating full 2MB POF file and not a single byte less. I tried both "Add SOF data" and "Add HEX data" variants but as long as EPCS16 is chosen as a target the result is always the same.

Some pointers? GUI, Quartus tcl scripts Nios2 EDS command line tools, I'd take any option.

3 Replies

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

    The "compression" flag has to be checked explicitely in the individual image file options. It's set independant of the *.sof compression state.

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

    I know.

    To repeat what I said above, it happens even when I "add to POF" the HEX data which size I know very well. The problem is in conversion to POF rather than in data itself.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    15 years ago

    Yes, you are right. The conversion tool always creates a file of full device size. Up to Quartus 9.0, the Quartus programmer uses a chip erase command rather than erasing individual pages. It's been said in the forum, that starting with Q9.1, individual pages are erased, but I'm not aware of the detail implications.