[hemmerling] Altera ( now merged with Intel ) "System on Chip" ( SoC )

Related pages:

• Electronic Design Automation ( EDA ) 3/5 - Design for Application-Specific Integrated Circuits ( ASIC ) - Design of digital Chips.
• Xilinx "System on Chip" ( SoC ).
• Hardware Debugger and Software Debugger.
• Linux 1/8.

• Altera Corporation.
• Altera Corporation "Processors from Altera and Embedded Alliance Partners" → ARM Cortex, Intel Atom, Freescale Coldfire, Nios II.
• Altera Corporation "SoC FPGA Overview".
• Altera "FPGA Designer Curriculum".
• Altera "Design Software Resource Centers".
  • Altera "Quartus II Software Support".
• Altus "Quartus II Development Software Literature".
• Forbes "Intel Buying Chipmaker Altera For $16.7 Billion", 2015-06-01.

*Altera SoC Developers Forum ( ASDF ) in Frankfurt, 2015-10-14.

• Altera Corporation "Arrow’s SoCKIT Solution Accelerates ARM-Based SoC Design".
• elektroniknet.de "Eval-Kit mit ARM SoC von Altera".

• EBV "SoCrates: SoC has Landed. The low cost CycloneV SoC starter kit from EBV".
• EBV SoCrates Workshop (HW) - Download Files, 2013-05-29.
• RocketBoards.org "EBV SoCrates Evaluation Board".
• Important: The DDR2 RAM speed must be set to 333 Mhz, not to 400 Mhz. The Altera / EBV workshop documents of 2013-06 stated to set the speed to 400 Mhz, which is not a stable setting for the current boards.
• The Socrates root file system, at RocketBoards.org, contains a Python webserver as part of the demonstration.

1. “Quartus II Web-Edition”. Select “Cyclon V” as target during installation.
2. “SoC Embedded Design Suite”.
3. “ARM Development Studio, DS-5 Community Edition”, activation key “AC+70616421313438”.
4. “PuTTY” for Windows.
5. “Win32DiskImager” for Windows.

• Altera "BeMicro FPGA Evaluation Kit" - “Build an Embedded Processor System in an FPGA in Minutes”. The “old” kit of 2010 ( 512 KB RAM ), good to learn how to configure a FPGA to make it work as a CPU & FPGA programming.
• Hitex "BeMicro FPGA-Stick"
• Hitex "LPC-Stick-Prototyping-Board" - “Prototypen-Erweiterungs-Board für die LPC Application Development Sticks oder BeMicro FPGA Evaluation Kit mit Erweiterungsstecker”.

• Altera "BeMicro SDK".
• Arrow "BeMicro SDK" - The “new” kit of 2011 ( 64 MB RAM ), good for software development.
• Hitex "BeMicro SDK".
• Hitex "LPC-Stick-Prototyping-Board" - “Prototypen-Erweiterungs-Board für die LPC Application Development Sticks oder BeMicro FPGA Evaluation Kit mit Erweiterungsstecker”.
• The board is equipped with a temperature sensor ( National LM71CIMF SPI/Microwire 13-bit Plus Sign Temperature Sensor ). As of 2011-03, there is a software bug in the FPGA, so that the temperature sensor does not create reasonable values when read from official “C/C++” software examples ( the webserver ). Typical values in normal conditioned rooms of 20° C at Winter/Spring time, are 32°C..34°C.
• The board is equipped with a microSD memory card reader.

1. “Quartus II Web-Edition”. Select “Cyclon IV E Family” as target during installation.
   • With these free Altera development tools, if the installation file has about the same size, the service package contain a new full version. The update does not patch the old version, but is a fresh install and must be installed in a separate directory.
2. Install “Nios II Embedded Design Suite (EDS)” in the same directory as “Quartus II Web-Edition”.
   • Else you get the error message during installation of “NiosII Embedded Design Suite (EDS)”, after the installation of “Quartus II Web-Edition”: “The specified path ('c:\altera\10.1') does not contain a Quartus II bin directory. Nios II Embedded Design Suite needs to install into the same directory level as Quartus II. Please specify a valid Quartus II installation directory”.
   • “Nios II Embedded Design Suite (EDS)” is a full version, there is no commercial subscription version !
3. Plug the “BeMicro SDK” USB stick in your Windows PC, and point Windows for driver installation to the directory “C:\altera\quartus\drivers\usb-blaster\”.
   • Don´t point to a deeper directory !
   • Warning: Win7 might be shipped with a non-functional outdated driver ?!
4. Use the “Board Support Package” ( C/C++ header files, drivers,..) to create your applications. You can access the software tools by classical command line commands and by Eclipse.

• Altera "DE2 Development and Education Board" - Cool multi-functional evaluation board .

• The free Altera Corporation "Download Center. Get the complete suite of Altera design tools" - "Quartus II Web Package 13.0".
  • “Quartus II Web-Edition” for Windows and Linux.
    • Select “Cyclon V” as target during installation.
  • TCL is the script language for Quartus. See Tcl / Tk ( tickle ).
• Altium Designer.
  • The free Altera "ModelSim ALTERA Starter Edition" for Windows and Linux.
• It is expected for Summer 2014, that FPGA development software will be solely available for 64-bit only and not anymore for 32-bit too, on Windows and Linux,

• The free Altera Corporation "SoC Embedded Design Suite".
• The free ARM Development Studio, DS-5 Community Edition
  • You need an activation key ( e.g. “AC+70616421313438” ) for operation.
  • While software development for Linux and host-driven debugging of Linux applicationss is free, bare metal development requires a commercial license.
• The OpenSource terminal software PuTTY for Windows.
• The OpenSource SourceForge "Win32DiskImager", SourceForge "Win32DiskImager. This tool is used for writing images to USB sticks or SD/CF cards".
• Altera Software v10.1 Installation Frequently Asked Questions.
• The “Altera Preloader” is based on “SPC U-Boot”.

• The OpenSource Embedded Linux Development Kit ( ELDK ).
• Git repository of DENX Software Engineering "Dzu's Linux Git Tree".
• Git repository of DENX Software Engineering "Ebv-socrates-v3.8".

• XILINX Wiki "Installing ELDK".
• Texas Instruments Wiki "ELDK usage".

• Altera, Download "Quartus II Web Edition Software" - The free development software “Quartus II Web-Edition” includes the “NiosII Embedded Design Suite (EDS)” for Windows ( Visual C/C++ 2008 Runtime ) and Linux.
• Altera Corporation "Embedded Software Development".
  • Nios II Embedded Design Suite Legacy Tools ( “https:” only ).
• Altera "Demonstration Center" - “Nios II Processor Online Demonstrations”, “Quartus II Online Demonstrations”.
• Altera Support Solution, 2011-01-12 "Why does Nios II Software Build Tools for Eclipse hang when you try to Run a project As Nios II Hardware ?" - “Quartus II software version 10.1 patch 0.18 for PC (.exe file)”.
• A full version of the realtime operating system µMicrium C/OS-II is shipped with the BeMicro SDK. “You can develop software for any of the Nios II development kits using the Micrium MicroC/OS-II RTOS. To generate software to run on other boards and/or ship in a product, you must obtain a license”.
• A trial version of the run-time monitoring tool Micrium "µC/Probe" for Windows is shipped with the BeMicro SDK.

• Arrow "BeMicro SDK Jumpstart Designer".
• Arrow Europe "BeMicro SDK Jumpstart Designer - powerful cloud-based design platform".

• Altera "Nios II Processor: The World's Most Versatile Embedded Processor".
• Altera "Literature: Nios II Processor".
• RocketBoards.org.
  • RocketBoards.org - Git Repository.
  • RocketBoards.org - Detlev Zundel.
• EN.Wikipedia "Nios II", DE.Wikipedia "Altera Nios".
• EN.Wikipedia "Altera", DE.Wikipedia "Altera".

• OpenDirectory "Top: World: Deutsch: Computer: Hardware: Mikrocontroller".