Specifications

Altera Corporation 1–7
October 2007
Nios II Hardware Development Tutorial Nios II System Development Flow
Answers to these questions involve both the hardware and software
teams.
Defining and Generating the System in SOPC Builder
After analyzing the system hardware requirements, you use the SOPC
Builder tool which is included in the Altera Quartus II software. Using
SOPC Builder you specify the Nios II processor core(s), memory, and
other components your system requires. SOPC Builder automatically
generates the interconnect logic to integrate the components in the
hardware system.
You can select from a list of standard processor cores and components
provided with the Nios II Embedded Design Suite. You can also add your
own custom hardware to accelerate system performance. You can add
custom instruction logic to the Nios II core which accelerates CPU
performance, or you can add a custom component which offloads tasks
from the CPU. This tutorial covers adding standard processor and
component cores, but does not cover adding custom logic to the system.
The primary outputs of SOPC Builder are the following:
■ SOPC Builder System File (.ptf) – This file stores the hardware
contents of the SOPC Builder system. The Nios II IDE requires the
SOPC Builder System File to compile software for the target
hardware.
■ Hardware description language (HDL) files – These files are the
hardware design files which describe the SOPC Builder system. The
Quartus II software uses the HDL files to compile the overall FPGA
design into an SRAM Object File (.sof).
f For further details on the Nios II processor, see the Nios II Processor
Reference Handbook. For further details on SOPC Builder and developing
custom components, see the Quartus II Handbook Volume 4: SOPC Builder.
For further details on custom instructions, see the Nios II Custom
Instruction User Guide.
Quartus II Hardware Development Tasks
After you generate the Nios II system using SOPC Builder, you integrate
it into the overall Quartus II project. Using the Quartus II software, you
perform all tasks required to create the final FPGA hardware design.
As shown in Figure 1–1 on page 1–2, most FPGA designs include logic
outside the Nios II system. You can integrate your own custom hardware
modules into the FPGA design, or you can integrate other ready-made