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WS1 Altera SoC Devices Introduction for SW Developers
This is the first of a series of workshops, to help users become familiar with software development for the Altera SoC family of parts. This workshop will cover Basic SoC architecture, address maps, HW and SW tool flow.

25 April 2016 - 23:52 | Version 51 | Rod Frazer | SoCSWWorkshop

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Introduction
Presentation Material
Setup for Labs
Hands-on Labs/Tutorials
Target Orientation

Introduction

This workshop is designed to familiarize the participant with the Altera SoC families of FPGA that include ARM Cortex-A9 processors. Specifically, how to create peripherals that become part of the memory map of the processors but reside in the FPGA and how software can interact with them.

Basic workshop outline:

Informational Resources
SoC Device Overview
Boot Process
Hardware Development Flow and Tools
Software Development Flow and Tools
- DS-5 Altera Edition
SoC Physical Address Maps
Bare Metal Software Overview
Linux Software Overview
Supported OSes
Preloader Generator and u-boot
SD Card Manipulation
System Console
LAB overview

Presentation Material

The WS1 presenatation material is available in this PDF document.

WS_1_Intro_To_SoC_SW_Workshop.pdf

Setup for Labs

What you will accomplish

Generating and Compiling the Preloader
Verifying Hardware with System Console
Creating a Bare Metal Application to Interact with FPGA Hardware
Creating a Linux Application to Interact with FPGA Hardware
Run a validation program.
- Verifies the lab was completed.
Submit results & feedback.

What you will need

A supported SoC development board.
A blank SD card to use with your development board.
An SD card programming adapter to use with your development host machine.
One USB cable to connect the console port of your development board to your development host and allow a terminal emulation program to interact with the serial console.
One USB cable to connect the USB OTG port of your development board to your development host and allow the USB gadget mass storage and network functions to interact with your development host.
One USB cable to connect the USB Blaster II port of your development board to your development host and allow System Console to communicate with the FPGA based Qsys system.
Altera ACDS and SoC EDS tools, and a terminal emulator to run on your development host, like Putty, minicom, etc.

Install Required Tools

You will need to obtain and install the Altera ACDS and SoC EDS software tools in order to complete the lab work for this workshop. The instructions for downloading and installing these tools is available on this page:

SoC SW Workshop Series Software Installation

Obtain and Configure a Supported Development Board

You will need to obtain and configure one of the supported SoC development boards in order to complete the lab work for this workshop. The list of supported boards and their configuration requirements for the workshop lab environment is available on this page:

SoC SW Workshop Series Board Configuration

Obtain SD card Image

Once you have obtained your SoC development board and configured it to run the workshop environment you will need to download the SD card image for that board and program it onto the appropriate SD card for your board. You can download the SD card image and find instructions for programming the SD card on this page:

SoC SW Workshop Series SD Card Images

Copy the Lab Materials from SD Card

Once you have the SD card imaged with the proper development board image, you will need to mount the FAT partition on that SD card onto your development host machine and copy some files from the SD card onto your development host. There are basically two ways to accomplish this.

You can simply plug the SD card into your development host using whatever SD card reader you used to image the SD card in the first place. Then mount the FAT partition on your develpment host.
You can plug the SD card into your target development board, connect the USB OTG cable between the target and your host, boot your target into linux where it should automatically start the USB gadget mass storage service and you should see a removable USB media device appear on your development host. At that point you can mount the FAT partition on your development host. For more information on this proceedure please refer to this link, Interacting with the USB gadget mass storage interface.

Once you get the FAT partition mounted on your development host the layout of your SD card contents should look similar to this. ws1 files 1.png

Now move the following objects from the SD card onto your local hard drive of your host development machine.

Create a working directory somewhere on the local hard drive of your development host, something like "ws1_labwork".
Then copy the "WS1-IntroToSoC" folder from the SD card FAT partition over to your working directory on your host development machine.
Next you need to identify the directory for your target development board. Each of the different boards supported by the workshop have their own board specific directory on the SD card.
Once you have located the correct directory for your development board you need to copy the "hps_isw_handoff" folder, the "output_files/.sof" file and the "soc_system.sopcinfo" file from the board specific directory on the SD card into the "WS1-IntroToSoC" folder that you just copied onto your host development machine.
When you are finished, the working directory on your host development machine should look something like this. In this case we've used the DE0_NANO_SOC board as our example.
You should now be prepared to start the lab work.