AN 717: Nios II Gen2 Hardware Development Tutorial

ID 683615
Date 9/22/2014
Public
Document Table of Contents

1.3. Design Example

The design example you build in this tutorial demonstrates a small system for control applications, that displays character I/O output and blinks LEDs in a binary counting pattern. This system can also communicate with a host computer, allowing the host computer to control logic inside the FPGA.

The example system contains the following components:

  • /f processor core
  • On-chip memory
  • Timer
  • JTAG UART
  • 8-bit parallel I/O (PIO) pins to control the LEDs
  • System identification component
Figure 1.  Design Example Block DiagramThe block diagram shows the relationship between the host computer, the target board, the FPGA, and the system.

Other logic can exist within the FPGA alongside the system. In fact, most FPGA designs with a system also include other logic. A system can interact with other on-chip logic, depending on the needs of the overall system. This design example does not include other logic in the FPGA.