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Multiple projects/SOFs to one RBF

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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I have two projects, factory and application. Upon compiling each project, I have two .sof files, factory and application. I am able to convert both .sof files into one .jic.  

 

However, I'd like to convert both .sof files into a .rbf. The conversion utility from within Quartus (that I use for the .jic conversion) only allows one .sof for converting to .rbf.  

 

Are there any options that will allow me to convert multiple .sofs into one .rbf? Or, can I somehow compile both projects into one .sof? Or, this is stretch, somehow the .jic to .rbf?  

 

One concern I have is that the factory and application EPCS locations are specified manually.  

 

Any advice is appreciated.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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It depends on how the FPGAs are configured. 

 

For example, the board in this photo: 

 

http://www.ovro.caltech.edu/~dwh/carma_board/ 

 

Has four Stratix II FPGAs in a passive serial daisy chain (the schematics and controller documentation are on that page). 

 

For passive serial programming I convert each FPGA .sof to .rbf and then concatenate them together into a single binary file. 

 

Cheers, 

Dave
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Altera_Forum
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I am using one Cyclone IV FPGA and utilize the remote update feature. The factory.sof goes into one address on the serial configuration device and the application.sof goes into a higher address on the serial configuration device. 

 

When programming the FPGA with a .jic file, I can add the factory.sof and application.sof via SOF pages and set the addresses that way. When trying to convert to an .rbf, (1) I can't using a .jic and (2) I can't set address locations when adding the .sof files to the SOF page. Moreover, I can't add an SOF page, I am only allowed one.  

 

Interesting link ...
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Altera_Forum
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--- Quote Start ---  

I am using one Cyclone IV FPGA and utilize the remote update feature. The factory.sof goes into one address on the serial configuration device and the application.sof goes into a higher address on the serial configuration device. 

 

--- Quote End ---  

 

 

I haven't tried using the Altera tools for that, so cannot help, sorry. 

 

Note that the EPCS devices are just serial (SPI) Flash. If you want to control the device programming, you can write a programmer easily enough. That would allow you to independently update and verify multiple images in the flash. 

 

That feature might exist in the nios2-flash-programmer tool: 

 

http://www.altera.com/literature/ug/ug_nios2_flash_programmer.pdf 

 

Cheers, 

Dave
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