Intel® Agilex™ Configuration User Guide

ID 683673
Date 10/29/2021
Public

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5. Remote System Update (RSU)

RSU implements device reconfiguration using dedicated RSU circuitry available in all Intel® Agilex™ devices. RSU has the following advantages:

  • Provides a mechanism to deliver feature enhancements and bug fixes without recalling your products
  • Reduces time-to-market
  • Extends product life

Using RSU and the Mailbox Client Intel® FPGA IP you can write configuration bitstreams to the AS x4 flash device. Then you can use the Mailbox Client Intel® FPGA IP to instruct the SDM to restart from the updated image. You can store multiple application images and a single factory image in the configuration device. Your design manages remote updates of the application images in the configuration device.

A command to the Mailbox Client Intel® FPGA IP initiates reconfiguration. The RSU performs configuration error detection during and after the reconfiguration process. If errors in the application image or images prevent reconfiguration, the configuration circuitry reverts to the factory image and provides error status information.

This chapter explains the remote system update implementation for active configuration schemes. The FPGA drives the RSU. For the Intel® Agilex™ SoC devices, HPS can drive the RSU process.

For passive configuration schemes, an external host implements remote system update rather than the Intel® Agilex™ device. To learn more about remote system update for passive configuration schemes, refer to Remote Update Intel® FPGA IP User Guide for remote system update implementations in earlier device families.

The following figure shows functional diagrams for typical remote system update processes.

Figure 61. Typical Remote System Update Process
Note: An Intel® Agilex™ version of the Intel® Stratix® 10 SoC Remote System Update (RSU) User Guide is not yet available. The RSU SoC implementation in Intel® Agilex™ is very similar to the implementation in Intel® Stratix® 10.