Intel Agilex® 7 Hard Processor System Remote System Update User Guide

ID 683184
Date 2/23/2024
Public
Document Table of Contents

3.2.4. Image Layout

This section presents the layout of an absolute application image. Starting with Quartus version 21.1 relative images were introduced, and the absolute images are now deprecated. It is recommended to only use relative images.
There are two types of images:
  • Absolute— The absolute images include pointers which need to be updated to match the flash location at which the image is written.
  • Relative— The relative images can be placed anywhere in flash without requiring any changes to the data.

The combined application images can only be relative, while the rest of the images can be either relative or absolute, as shown in the following table:

Image Type Absolute Relative
Application Image x x
Factory Update Image x x
Decision Firmware Update Image x x
Combined Application Image x

The absolute images are created by passing the “-o start_address=0x0” option to the Programming File Generator, while the relative images are created without passing this option.

Both U-Boot and LibRSU automatically detect the image type, and they perform the required pointer updates for absolute images when writing and verifying images.

Relative images were introduced with Quartus Pro version 21.1. The absolute images are now deprecated, and it is recommended to always use relative images