Custom cyclone board & Nios?

[Altera_Forum]

Hello; 

I am new to this board and new to Nios. I have however, worked for a few years with FPGAs and embedded systems.   I have designed a board with three cyclones and one EPC16 with JTAG and byteblaster interface. All algorithm, interfaces, etc. have been developed in VHDL. Now I need to add extra capabilities such as USB, UART, and Ethernet to this board ( I can do it physically with a lot of IO expansion possibilities).  So, I am wondering; IF I can dump a small NIOS footprint to one of my Cyclones, I should be able to add those extra features with much less overhead, and development time. My question is, is this at all possible?  Please forgive me for being so direct.

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  originally posted by afshin+oct 27 2005, 02:53 pm--><div class='quotetop'>quote (afshin @ oct 27 2005, 02:53 pm)</div>  --- quote start ---  hello; i am new to this board and new to nios.  i have however, worked for a few years with fpgas and embedded systems.    i have designed a board with three cyclones and one epc16 with jtag and byteblaster interface.  all algorithm, interfaces, etc. have been developed in vhdl.  now i need to add extra capabilities such as usb, uart, and ethernet to this board ( i can do it physically with a lot of io expansion possibilities).   so, i am wondering; if i can dump a small nios footprint to one of my cyclones, i should be able to add those extra features with much less overhead, and development time. my question is, is this at all possible?[/b]  --- quote end ---   in general, yes. however, you didn&#39;t say how much space in what kind of cyclone, and how much memory (ram and flash) is available to that nios. you&#39;re not getting tcp/ip support with just the internal cyclone memory; there&#39;s not enough. if you use ecos, you should probably be able to do it with about 512k flash and a 4-8 megs of ram (though i must admit that i have not tried to decrease the memory footprint of my ecos system; i&#39;ve got a 128mb sodimm to play with). if you use linux, you&#39;ll need more flash than the epc16 has, so you&#39;ll need an external flash chip, and probably more ram, and it might be overkill.  the epc16 is tricky to use as a nios flash device, but it&#39;s possible; i&#39;ve done it. the simplest thing to do is define it as a new component in sopc (it is not a cfi flash), then use the memory map file to figure out where the open space past the end of your cyclone configurations is, round up to the next 16-byte-aligned address, and set your reset location there. sopc builder will complain about the reset address not being 0, but ignore it.  <!--quotebegin-afshin@Oct 27 2005, 02:53 PM please forgive me for being so direct.  --- Quote End ---   Pertinent answers are usually obtained through impertinent questions. http://forum.niosforum.com/work2/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  originally posted by mike desimone+oct 28 2005, 11:52 am--><div class='quotetop'>quote (mike desimone @ oct 28 2005, 11:52 am)</div>  --- quote start ---    --- quote start ---  originally posted by afshin@oct 27 2005, 02:53 pm hello; i am new to this board and new to nios.  i have however, worked for a few years with fpgas and embedded systems.    i have designed a board with three cyclones and one epc16 with jtag and byteblaster interface.  all algorithm, interfaces, etc. have been developed in vhdl.  now i need to add extra capabilities such as usb, uart, and ethernet to this board ( i can do it physically with a lot of io expansion possibilities).   so, i am wondering; if i can dump a small nios footprint to one of my cyclones, i should be able to add those extra features with much less overhead, and development time. my question is, is this at all possible?  --- quote end ---   in general, yes. however, you didn&#39;t say how much space in what kind of cyclone, and how much memory (ram and flash) is available to that nios. you&#39;re not getting tcp/ip support with just the internal cyclone memory; there&#39;s not enough. if you use ecos, you should probably be able to do it with about 512k flash and a 4-8 megs of ram (though i must admit that i have not tried to decrease the memory footprint of my ecos system; i&#39;ve got a 128mb sodimm to play with). if you use linux, you&#39;ll need more flash than the epc16 has, so you&#39;ll need an external flash chip, and probably more ram, and it might be overkill.  the epc16 is tricky to use as a nios flash device, but it&#39;s possible; i&#39;ve done it. the simplest thing to do is define it as a new component in sopc (it is not a cfi flash), then use the memory map file to figure out where the open space past the end of your cyclone configurations is, round up to the next 16-byte-aligned address, and set your reset location there. sopc builder will complain about the reset address not being 0, but ignore it.  <!--quotebegin-afshin@Oct 27 2005, 02:53 PM please forgive me for being so direct.  --- Quote End ---   Pertinent answers are usually obtained through impertinent questions. http://forum.niosforum.com/work2/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif  <div align='right'><{post_snapback}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=10663)</div> [/b]  --- Quote End ---     I am using EP1c20f324c8, from what I understand I need to design another board for painless migeration, nevertheless, thank you for your insight.