AN 978: Nios® V Processor Migration Guidelines

ID 773196
Date 11/25/2024
Public
Document Table of Contents

6.4. Bootloader

Both Nios® II and Nios® V processors support:

  • Execute-in-place (XIP) using alt_load function
  • Program copied to system RAM using boot copier
Table 28.  Supported Flash Memories with Respective Boot Options
Supported Boot Memories Device Nios® V Processor Booting Methods Application Runtime Location Boot Copier
Configuration QSPI Flash (for Active Serial configuration) Control block-based devices (with Generic Serial Flash Interface Intel FPGA IP) 2

Nios® V processor application execute-in-place from configuration QSPI flash.

Configuration QSPI flash (XIP) + OCRAM/ External RAM (for writable data sections) alt_load() function
Nios® V processor application copied from configuration QSPI flash to RAM using boot copier. OCRAM/ External RAM GSFI bootloader
SDM-based devices (with Mailbox Client Intel FPGA IP). 2 Nios® V processor application copied from configuration QSPI flash to RAM using boot copier. OCRAM/ External RAM SDM bootloader

On-chip Memory (OCRAM)

All supported Intel® FPGA devices. 2 Nios® V processor application execute-in-place from OCRAM. OCRAM alt_load() function
Tightly Coupled Memory (TCM) All supported Intel® FPGA devices.2 Nios® V processor application execute-in-place from TCM. Instruction TCM (XIP) + Data TCM (for writable data sections) None
2 Refer to AN 980: Nios® V Processor Quartus® Prime Software Support for the device list.