Generic Nios II Booting Methods User Guide

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ID 683820
Date 5/24/2016
Public
Document Table of Contents
Document Table of Contents x
1. Generic Nios II Booting Methods User Guide 2. Document Revision History for Generic Nios II Booting Methods
1. Generic Nios II Booting Methods User Guide x
1.1. Overview 1.2. Prerequisites 1.3. Acronym 1.4. Nios II Processor Boot Copier 1.5. Nios II Processor Booting Methods 1.6. Nios II Booting Elements 1.7. Nios II Programming Solutions
1.4. Nios II Processor Boot Copier x
1.4.1. Memcpy-Based Boot Copier 1.4.2. EPCS Controller-Based Boot Copier
1.5. Nios II Processor Booting Methods x
1.5.1. Nios II Booting General Flow 1.5.2. Summary of Nios II Processor Vector Configurations and BSP Settings 1.5.3. Nios II Processor Application Execute-In-Place from CFI Flash 1.5.4. Nios II Processor Application Copied from CFI Flash to RAM Using Boot Copier 1.5.5. Nios II Processor Application Copied from EPCS Flash to RAM Using Boot Copier
1.6. Nios II Booting Elements x
1.6.1. Nios II SBT Makefile 'mem_init_generate' Target 1.6.2. Convert Programming Files Option 1.6.3. Elf2flash Utility
1.7. Nios II Programming Solutions x
1.7.1. Recommended Programming Solution
1. Generic Nios II Booting Methods User Guide
2. Document Revision History for Generic Nios II Booting Methods

1.5.3. Nios II Processor Application Execute-In-Place from CFI Flash

Altera Avalon CFI Flash maps Avalon Memory Map (Avalon MM) signals into CFI signals which the entire CFI address space is mapped into Altera CFI Flash’s Avalon MM slave interface. Hence, CFI devices are immediately accessible by Nios II processor upon system reset without CSR initialization.

For these reasons, Nios II can execute application stored on CFI devices directly without a boot copier.

When a boot copier is not used, the Nios II application .text linker sections are set to CFI memory region while .bss, .rodata, .rwdata, .stack and .heap linker sections are set to RAM memory region. Enable the alt_load() function in the BSP Settings to copy the data sections (.rodata, .rwdata, .exceptions) to the RAM upon system reset. The code section (.text) remains in the CFI memory region.

For more information, refer to the "Summary of Nios II Processor Vector Configurations" chapter and the "BSP Settings" table for detailed BSP Settings.

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