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Updating NIOS SW without touching FPGA Programmable logic

amildm
Valued Contributor I
814 Views

Hi All, 

We are rapidly changing the NIOS SW without any changes in FPGA programmable logic.

Is there a way to say to Quartus do not to change (do not touch) the FPGA programmable logic at all and only update the FPGA part, which is strictly related to NIOS SW?

Thanks! 

 

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EBERLAZARE_I_Intel
783 Views

Hi,

 

For example using Nios II Processor Booting from QSPI Flash:

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/programmable/us/en/pdfs/literature/hb/nios2/edh_ed_handbook.pdf#page=275

 

If you scroll down 1 page (276), you can see that once you generated the .sof file (Quartus compile), you can reuse the .sopcinfo from the compiled design, and generate the .pof from the .sof.

 

You can proceed and repeat just from the steps "BSP Editor Settings".

 

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amildm
Valued Contributor I
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Cool... So, as for the JIC generation, should both SOF and HEX files be the input files?

What actually happens during the JIC file generation? How does it mix the SOF and HEX files?

 

 

 

 

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amildm
Valued Contributor I
714 Views

OK, the *.POF is for MAX devices... What's the flow for the *.JIC devices (e.g. Cyclone 10)?

 

Should not I deal with a bootloader in order to load two images from FLASH (the first image is for FPGA programming, the second one is for NIOS SW)?

 

 

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EBERLAZARE_I_Intel
531 Views

Hi,


I suggest that you refer to the documentation, and follow the steps and try it on your board.


If you require to test another design, you can try below:

https://fpgacloud.intel.com/devstore/platform/17.0.0/Standard/cyclone-10-lp-remote-system-update-design-example/


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EBERLAZARE_I_Intel
518 Views

Hi,


Do you have any further questions?


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