There is a preloader included as part of the project. It’s the preloader that was built as part of the SoCKit workshop (13.1 version). It’s needed to configure the HPS (the processor part of the Altera SOC FPGA). It’s just the preloader for the Global Hardware Reference Design. I mention it because a lot of the collateral for the SOC talks a lot about the preloader. It’s important but it’s not worth making too big of a deal out of since we can just use a pre-built one (part of the attached archive), and the details of how to build a new one are pretty well-documented.

There is an SOF file as part of the zip file / archive. It will need to be loaded prior to debugging. This may not be the case in a your actual design, but for this demo, it needs to be loaded. FYI, it’s just the compiled GHRD design. Just to keep things simple, always use it, or some version of an FPGA design.

So to get this running, you will need to go through the following steps:

1) Connect USB cables to J2 and J4 on the SOCKit board.

2) MAKE SURE THE SD CARD IS NOT INSERTED

3) Power on the board.

4) Start Putty, connect to the appropriate COM port and run at 115200.

5) Start DS-5

6) Create a new workspace

7) Load the archive into DS-5 as follows:

a) Select File Import

b) Select General / Existing Projects into Workspace / select Next

c) Pick Select archive file, and point to the attached archive and click Finish

The project loads. Note there might be some files that you won’t use in the Project Explorer. When DS-5 creates an archive, it dumps everything in. Don’t worry about it. But look at Project Explorer--there is a main()!

8) To actually run/debug the project, select Run / Debug Configurations . . .

a) Select the "Altera-SoCFPGA-BareMetalBoot-GNU Debugging" setup as shown in the left panel of the Debug Configurations window.

b) Ensure that when you “Browse” to the Bare Metal Debug connection (under Connections in the Debug Configurations window), that you can see the SoCKit board connected via USB.

c) Select the Debugger Tab as shown below. Note the debug initialization debugger script. It’s being pointed to using a workspace variable called $(workspace_loc:/… which may be different in your setup. If so, just select the Workspace button, and locate the file. Note that having a correct debugger script is key to getting this working. If you tried to run the Bare Metal example that ships with SOC-EDS on the SoCKit board it probably didn't work, as its debugger script has been set up to work with the Altera SoC board. Feel free to examine the contents of the debugger script included with this project.

d) Press the Debug button (bottom right of the Debug Configurations) and watch the action in Putty.

There’s a breakpoint at main().

9) Press the green-triangle "continue" button. A bunch more stuff should come out of putty, which is main() setting up peripherals and such. You can see all the printfs that generate the messages below in the code.

There you have it! You can now add some of your own code. Write clever messages. Exercise some other peripherals since they’re mostly all initialized. This is where your Bare Metal application will be added.

• ArrowSoCKit_BareMetal_GNU.zip