Specifications
1–10 Altera Corporation
October 2007
Creating the Example Design Nios II Hardware Development Tutorial
tasks, you might even decide to use two (or more) Nios II processors that
divide the workload and improve the performance of each individual
processor.
Iteratively Creating a Nios II System
A common technique for building a complex Nios II system is to start
with a simpler SOPC Builder system, and iteratively add to it. At each
iteration you can verify that the system performs as expected. You might
choose to verify the fundamental components of a system, such as the
processor, memory, and communication channels, before adding more
complex components. When developing a custom component or a
custom instruction, first integrate the custom logic into a minimal system
to verify that it works as expected; later you can integrate the custom logic
into a more complex system.
f The Nios II Embedded Design Suite provides several working Nios II
reference designs, which you can use as a starting point for your own
designs. After installing the Nios II Embedded Design Suite, see the
directory <Nios II EDS install path>/examples/verilog or the directory
<Nios II EDS install path>/examples/vhdl.
Verifying the System with Hardware Simulation Tools
You can perform hardware simulation of software executing on the
Nios II system, using tools such as the ModelSim RTL simulator.
Hardware simulation is useful for certain cases, including the following:
■ To verify the cycle-accurate performance of a Nios II system before
target hardware is available.
■ To verify the functionality of a custom component or a Nios II
custom instruction before trying it on hardware.
A hardware simulation step is not shown in Figure 1–2 on page 1–5. If
you are building a Nios II system based on the standard components
provided with the Nios II Embedded Design Suite, the easiest way to
verify functionality is to download the hardware and software directly to
a development board.
f For details on performing hardware simulation for Nios II system, see
AN351: Simulating Nios II Embedded Processor Designs.
Creating the
Example Design
This section guides you through the Nios II development flow to create a
working example design. You perform the following steps:
1. “Install the Design Files” on page 1–11.