Introduction

This article shows how to use DS-5 to launch u-boot. This can be useful in scenarios where an SoC design has only QSPI or NAND flash and no SD card or Ethernet interface. DS-5 is used to load and run u-boot. The user can then use the DS-5 restore command to download SW images into the targets memory and u-boot commands to copy them to QSPI or NAND. This method is significantly faster than using the quartus_hps facility to program HPS flash devices via JTAG.

Procedures

1. Create preloader & u-boot.

Follow the guidelines here to build the preloader and u-boot.

The following files are generated:

2. Connect your USB cables to both the USB Blaster connection and the USB to serial UART connection on your board, then power on your board.

3. Launch DS-5 from an Embedded Command shell.

4. Switch the the DS-5 Debug perspective (Window menu → Open Perspective → DS-5 Debug), then open a terminal window within DS-5 (Window menu → Show View → Other).

5. Configure the terminal settings.

6. Create a DS-5 u-boot debug configuration.

Open Debug Configurations

Create a new Debug Configuration.

Initialize the configuration as shown below. Set the USB Blaster connection using the Browse button under Bare Metal Debug (below Connections) then press Debug to begin.

7. Launch the debug configuration.

8. Run u-boot. Press any key in the terminal window to stop autoboot.

9. Download contents to the target's memory.

10. Copy contents from memory to Flash.