[Moved] Uni project, MCU on a FPGA?

[Plecto]

Hi. We've just started with a university project where the idea is to implement a MCU on an Altera DE2 board. We've previously successfully implemented a 32-bit MIPS processor on the FPGA so we are thinking of just using this architecture. The first problem we are facing is the programming part, how to store the assembly code coming from the programmer to the memory on the DE2 board. I know we need to make something like an SPI interface that can handle the incoming serial data and then save it on the 4MB flash on the DE2, but how does the information from the programmer look like? What type of programmer should we use for this purpose?

 

[ads-ee]

Why don't you use the Nios II? Then you won't have to re-invent the development and programming ecosystem. Or perhaps see if you can incorporate the MIPs processor design into the Altera's EDK environment as a new processor. I know Xilinx allows you to create new embedded IP (including uP) I'm guessing Altera would have something similar.

 

[Plecto]

We don't have anything but the DE2. Is this programming ecosystem big? Aren't we just talking about a list of instructions? What's coming out of that programmer exactly?

 

[ads-ee]

I'm pretty sure that Quartus II has the DE2 as one of the boards it supports.

Which means you can use Altera's EDK tool suite and their embedded development environment, which allows you to build a uP system and add custom IP to the embedded system. This embedded system has IP that can already interface with things like SPI/DDR2/3 SDRAM/etc. Along with a board support package you'll have the benefit of getting bootloaders and such for the system and worked out methods of inserting the boot code into the sof programming file.

The biggest issue is if you can get access to the Altera embedded tool suite, which is a superset of Quartus II.

regards