AN 796: Cyclone® V and Arria® V SoC Device Design Guidelines

ID 683360
Date 3/30/2022
Public
Document Table of Contents

4.5.3. QSPI Flash Interface Design Guidelines

Up to four QSPI chip selects can be used with Cyclone® V/ Arria® V SoC. The device can boot only from QSPI connected to the chip select zero.

GUIDELINE: Ensure that the QSPI_SS signals are used in numerical order.

Intel® Quartus® Prime assumes that the QSPI_SS signals are used in order. It is not possible to use SS0 and SS2, for example, without using SS1.

Note: Refer to Supported Flash Devices for Cyclone® V and Arria® V SoC for a list of supported QSPI devices. RocketBoards.org also provides useful information at GSRD v13.1 - Booting from QSPI and GSRD v13.1 - Programming QSPI Flash.

GUIDELINE: If your design uses QSPI flash with 4-byte addressing, design the board to ensure that the QSPI flash is reset or power-cycled whenever the HPS is reset.

The HPS boot ROM on Cyclone V and Arria V runs in 3-byte address mode by default. If the QSPI flash is switched to 4-byte addressing during operation, ensure that it is returned to its default 3-byte addressing mode whenever the HPS is reset. Otherwise, the HPS cannot boot from or access the QSPI flash memory device.

You can switch the QSPI to 3-byte addressing mode using one of the following methods:

  • If the QSPI device has a reset pin, assert the reset signal every time the HPS device is reset.
  • If the QSPI device does not have a reset pin, power-cycle the QSPI device every time the HPS device is reset.
The CV SoC and AV Soc QSPI Boot page of RocketBoards.org offers recommendations for implementing the reset signal to the QSPI flash. For additional information, refer to “Selecting QSPI Flash Devices” and “For QSPI and SD/MMC/eMMC Provide Flash Memory Reset”.