Connection between Hardware and NIOS II (Bridges, Streaming)

[Altera_Forum]

Hello! 

I am searching for a fast method to transfer data produced in the Verilog hardware to the NIOS II processor. My ideas are:  

• Using Avalon-MM Slave and Avalon-MM Master in the SOPC builder, but I don't know how they work; I can't even find the Avalon-MM Slave in SOPC builder :( 
• Filling the SRAM with bits (controlled by the Hardware) then transfer the SRAM control to the NIOS II, maybe through a tri-state-bridge or high z-states?? 

 What is the best method to transfer data between hardware and the processor?  Best would be if 32 bit words could be transferred at 50 MHz.  Why I want to do that: I need to transfer data produced at constant rate by the Verilog hardware to my computer. I already managed to send something via NIOS II+Ethernet to my computer. So the next step is to get the data from the Hardware into the NIOS II.  I am using the DE2-115 and the DE4 board and I want to transfer 1Gbit of data at a time.  Thank you!

[Altera_Forum]

SGDMA would be the answer for You, but no chance that Nios will be capable of processing such data rate.

[Altera_Forum]

Thank you, direct memory access is definitely what I need!  

I instantiated the Scatter-Gather DMA controller in the SOPC builder with the transfer mode "Stream to Memory" and connected the m_write output to the SDRAM and the two descriptor ports to an on chip-memory instance. So, remaining is the port "in" in SOPC builder that I need to connect to an "Avalon-ST source". Can you tell me what I need to connect this to in the SOPC builder to have an actual input in my Nios module in the Verilog code?

[Altera_Forum]

You need to put your verilog code into a custom SOPC component, that provides the data through a standard Avalon Stream Source interface.

[Altera_Forum]

Thanks! I need to learn how to do that, but looks complicated at first glance. 

For now, I use PIO registers and a hardware buffer, which can be read at approximately 5MHz.  Cheers