Specifications

CHAPTER 16: SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
GENERATING SOFTWARE OUTPUT FILES
ALTERA CORPORATION INTRODUCTION TO QUARTUS II ■ 241
2. Run the ARM-based Excalibur MegaWizard Plug-In to generate a
System Build Descriptor File (.sbd).
3. If you want the flash programming file to contain configuration data for
the programmable logic device (PLD) portion of the Excalibur device,
compile the design to generate a Slave Binary Image File (.sbi).
4. Specify the toolset directory and software build settings. To generate a
flash programming file, you must specify the output file type and file
name, turn on Flash memory configuration, and, if you are using a
Slave Binary Image File, specify the optional Slave Binary Image File in
the Software Build Settings page of the Settings dialog box
(Assignments menu).
5. Start the software build.
Figure 1 shows the flow for using the Software Builder to create flash
programming files.
Figure 1. Flash Programming Files Flow
To generate the flash programming files, the Software Builder performs the
following steps:
1. An assembler, C/C++ compiler, linker, and code converter converts
software source files into a HEX File that contains Excalibur embedded
processor stripe memory initialization data for the Excalibur device.
2. A boot data object file is created from the HEX File, System Build
Descriptor File, and Slave Binary Image File.
MegaWizard Plug-In
Manager
Quartus II
Software Builder
quartus_swb
from Quartus II
Compiler
(full compilation)
Software source files
include Assembly Files (.s, .asm),
C/C++ Include Files (.h),
C Source Files (.c),
C++ Source Files (.cpp) &
Library Files (.a)
Simulator
initialization
files
to Quartus II
Simulator or
other EDA
simulation tools
System Build
Descriptor File (.sbd)
Flash programming
file (.hex)
Slave Binary Image
File (.sbi)