Introduction

The step by step instruction based on the SOPC builder is outdated. But you can still find it in the archive. If you are searching a step by step instruction using the Qsys system, take a look at the DE0-nano example.

Based on the Qsys system I will provide you here the FPGA design files for the Altera DE1 and DE0-nano board for the ChibiOS project.

Hardware

For this tutorial an Altera DE1 Board was used:

The DE1 board provides a lot of functionality. But for this tutorial only the following subset was used:

• Cyclone II (EP2C20F484C7)
• Build in USB Blaster
• 8MByte SDRAM
• 4 Push-button switches
• 10 Toggle switches
• 8 Green User LEDs
• 10 Red User LEDs
• 50 MHz oscillator

Quartus and Cyclone II

Some notes for the correct Quartus version.

I tried the latest version, which was 13.1 in the moment. Unfortunately the Cyclone II support was removed here. Ok, quick check at the Altera page. The latest version where the Cyclone II will be supported is 13.0sp1.

But with version 13.0sp1 I had a problem to create the Board Support Package within Eclipse. It looks that other users have the same problem too. Unfortunately the workaround could not solve my problem how I create the BSP for ChibiOS. The next version I have tested was 12.1sp1

I will make it short, with 12.1sp1 I had problems to create new components under Qsys. And it looks that other users have problems too. Again, one step back, next test was made with 11.1sp2. This was the version I still used under Windows XP before.

Btw, here I am using Windows 7 64-bit. With 11.1.sp2 I had no problems with the Component Editor. But the USB-Blaster could not be found. A solution could be found in the Altera Knowledge Base.

Now I could program the design with Quartus II and I want to start the software development with the Nios II SBT. Short hint, Eclipse must be started as administrator. See Altera Wiki.

After some tests it looks that the debugging was not stable here. Sometimes I could debug the project, sometimes it was not possible to download the project into the Nios II. It takes a while to found the problem, the USB-Blaster driver. I could solve the problem by using a new driver from the Altera Knowledge Base here.

For the moment it looks that I have found a stable solution which is working for the Altera DE1 Board.

Download

de1-chibios-example-20140502 for QuartusII 11.1 (664 KB)

de0-nano-chibios-example-20140502 for QuartusII 11.1 (623 KB)