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The Quartus II design software and the Nios II EDS is available via the Altera Complete Design Suite DVD or by downloading from the web.
The Micrium uC/Probe Trial version is available via download from the web at http://micrium.com/download/Micrium-uC-Probe-Setup-Trial.exe. After installation add to the “Path” system variable the entry “%QUARTUS_ROOTDIR%\bin\“ on the third position in the list.
Create a folder called “ADIEvalBoardsLab” on your PC and extract the ADIEvalBoardsDemo.zip archive to this folder. Make sure that there are NO SPACES in the directory path. After extracting the archive the following folders should be present in the ADIEvalBoardsLab folder: FPGA, Software, ucProbeInterface. An optional HDL folder can be also present to store the HDL code for the NIOS II peripherals needed to communicate with the evaluation board.
After the Quartus II and Nios II software packages are installed, you can plug the BeMicro SDK board into your USB port. Your Windows PC will find the new hardware and try to install the driver.
Since Windows cannot locate the driver for the device the automatic installation will fail and the driver has to be installed manually. In the Device Manager right click on the USB-Blaster device and select Update Driver Software.
In the next dialog box select the option Browse my computer for driver software. A new dialog will open where it is possible to point to the driver’s location. Set the location to altera\11.0\quartus\drivers\usb-blaster and press Next.
The next sections of this lab present all the steps needed to create a fully functional project that can be used for evaluating the operation of the ADI platform. It is possible to skip these steps and load into the FPGA an image that contains a fully functional system that can be used together with the uC-Probe interface for the ADI platform evalution. The first step of the quick evaluation process is to program the FPGA with the image provided in the lab files. Before the image can be loaded the Quartus II Web Edition tool or the Quartus II Programmer must be installed on your computer. To load the FPGA image run the program_fpga.bat batch file located in the ADIEvalBoardsLab/FPGA folder. After the image was loaded the system must be reset. Now the FPGA contains a fully functional system and it si possible to skip directly to the uC-Probe Interface section of this lab.
The lab is delivered together with a set of design files that are used to evaluate the ADI part. The FPGA image that must be loaded into the BeMicroSDK FPGA is included in the design files. This section presents the components included in the FPGA image and also the procedure to load the image into the FPGA.
The following components are implemented in the FPGA design:
Name | Address | IRQ | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|
CPU | 800 | - | |
Main PLL | 80 | - | |
JTAG UART | 90 | 0 |
To load the FPGA image the following steps must be performed:
After finishing, the image is permanently loaded to the configuration Flash and the system will start with a blinking LED after reset or power up.
This section presents the steps for developing a software application that will run on the BeMicroSDK system and will be used for controlling and monitoring the operation of the ADI evaluation board.
Launch the Nios II SBT from the Start → All Programs → Altera → Nios II EDS 11.0 → Nios II 11.0 Software Build Tools for Eclipse (SBT).
The tool will create two new software project directories. Each Nios II application has 2 project directories in the Eclipse workspace.
Since you chose the blank project template, there are no source files in the application project directory at this time. The BSP contains a directory of software drivers as well as a system.h header file, system initialization source code and other software infrastructure.
The software project provided in this lab does not make use of an operating system. All stdout, stdin and stderr messages will be directed to the jtag_uart.
In addition to the board support package settings configured using the BSP Editor, there are other compilation settings managed by the Eclipse environment such as compiler flags and optimization level.
In Windows Explorer locate the project directory which contains a directory called Software. In Windows Explorer select all the files and directories from the Software folder and drag and drop them into the Eclipse software project ADIEvalBoardsDemo.
Just as you configured the optimization level for the BSP project, you should set the optimization level for the application software project ADIEvalBoardsDemo as well.
Application code can be conveniently organized in a directory structure. This section shows how to define these paths in the makefile.
These 2 steps will compile and build the associated board support package, then the actual application software project itself. The result of the compilation process will be an Executable and Linked Format (.elf) file for the application, the ADIEvalBoardsDemo.elf file.
The BeMicroSDK hardware is designed with a System ID peripheral. This peripheral is assigned a unique value based on when the hardware design was last modified in the SOPC Builder tool. SOPC Builder also places this information in the .sopcinfo hardware description file. The BSP is built based on the information in the .sopcinfo file.
To run the software project on the Nios II processor:
This will re-build the software project to create an up–to-date executable and then download the code into memory on the BeMicroSDK hardware. The debugger resets the Nios II processor, and it executes the downloaded code. Note that the code is verified in memory before it is executed.