This section presents the steps for developing a software application that will run on the BeMicroSDK system and will be used for controlling and monitoring the operation of the ADI evaluation board.

Launch the Nios II SBT from the Start → All Programs → Altera → Nios II EDS 11.0 → Nios II 11.0 Software Build Tools for Eclipse (SBT).

• When Eclipse first launches, a dialog box appears asking what directory it should use for its workspace. It is useful to have a separate Eclipse workspace associated with each hardware project that is created in SOPC Builder. Browse to the ADIEvalBoardLab directory and click Make New Folder to create a folder for the software project. Name the new folder “eclipse_workspace”. After selecting the workspace directory, click OK and Eclipse will launch and the workbench will appear in the Nios II perspective.

• Select File → New → Nios II Application and BSP from Template.

• Click the Browse button in the SOPC Information File Name dialog box.
• Select the uC.sopcinfo file located in the ADIEvalBoardLab/FPGA directory.
• Set the name of the Application project to “ADIEvalBoard”.
• Select the Blank Project template under Project template.
• Click the Finish button.

The tool will create two new software project directories. Each Nios II application has 2 project directories in the Eclipse workspace.

• The application software project itself - this where the application lives.
• The second is the Board Support Package (BSP) project associated with the main application software project. This project will build the system library drivers for the specific SOPC system. This project inherits the name from the main software project and appends “_bsp” to that.

Since you chose the blank project template, there are no source files in the application project directory at this time. The BSP contains a directory of software drivers as well as a system.h header file, system initialization source code and other software infrastructure.

• Configure the board support package to specify the properties of this software system by using the BSP Editor tool. These properties include what interface should be used for stdio and stderr messages, the memory in which stack and heap should be allocated and whether an operating system or network stack should be included with this BSP.
• Right click on the ADIEvalBoard_bsp project and select Nios II → BSP Editor… from the right-click menu.

The software project provided in this lab does not make use of an operating system. All stdout, stdin and stderr messages will be directed to the jtag_uart.

• Select the Common settings view. In the Common settings view, change the following settings:
  • Select the jtag_uart for stdin, stdout and stderr messages. Note that you have more than one choice.
  • Select none for the sys_clk_timer and timestamp_timer.

• Select File → Save to save the board support package configuration to the settings.bsp file.
• Click the Generate button to update the BSP.
• When the generate has completed, select File → Exit to close the BSP Editor.

In addition to the board support package settings configured using the BSP Editor, there are other compilation settings managed by the Eclipse environment such as compiler flags and optimization level.

• Right click on the ADIEvalBoard_bsp software project and select Properties from the right-click menu.
• On the left-hand menu, select Nios II BSP Properties.
• During compilation, the code may have various levels of optimization which is a tradeoff between code size and performance. Change the Optimization level setting to Level 2
• Since our software does not make use of C++, uncheck Support C++.
• Check the Reduced device drivers option
• Check the Small C library option
• Press Apply and OK to regenerate the BSP and close the Properties window.

In Windows Explorer locate the project directory which contains a directory called Software. In Windows Explorer select all the files and directories from the Software folder and drag and drop them into the Eclipse software project ADIEvalBoard.

• Select all the files and folders and drag them over the ADIEvalBoard project in the SBT window and drop the files onto the project folder.

• A dialog box will appear to select the desired operation. Select the option Copy files and folders and press OK.

• This should cause the source files to be physically copied into the file system location of the software project directory and register these source files within the Eclipse workspace so that they appear in the Project Explorer file listing.

Just as you configured the optimization level for the BSP project, you should set the optimization level for the application software project ADIEvalBoard as well.

• Right click on the ADIEvalBoard software project and select Properties from the right-click menu.
• On the left-hand menu, select the Nios II Application Properties tab
• Change the Optimization level setting to Level 2.
• Press Apply and OK to save the changes.

Application code can be conveniently organized in a directory structure. This section shows how to define these paths in the makefile.

• In the Eclipse environment double click on my_include_paths.in to open the file.
• Click the Ctrl and A keys to select all the text. Click the Ctrl and C keys to copy all the text.

• Double click on Makefile to open the file.
• If you see the message shown here about resources being out of sync, right click on the Makefile and select Refresh.

• Select the line APP_INCLUDE_DIRS :=

• Click the Ctrl and V keys to replace the selected line with the include paths.

• Click the Ctrl and S keys to save the Makefile.

• Right click the ADIEvalBoard_bsp software project and choose Build Project to build the board support package.
• When that build completes, right click the ADIEvalBoard application software project and choose Build Project to build the Nios II application.

These 2 steps will compile and build the associated board support package, then the actual application software project itself. The result of the compilation process will be an Executable and Linked Format (.elf) file for the application, the ADIEvalBoard.elf file.

The BeMicroSDK hardware is designed with a System ID peripheral. This peripheral is assigned a unique value based on when the hardware design was last modified in the SOPC Builder tool. SOPC Builder also places this information in the .sopcinfo hardware description file. The BSP is built based on the information in the .sopcinfo file.

• Select the ADIEvalBoard application software project.
• Select Run → Run Configurations…
• Select the Nios II Hardware configuration type.
• Press the New button to create a new configuration.
• Change the configuration name to BeMicroSDK and click Apply.
• On the Target Connection tab, press the Refresh Connections button. You may need to expand the window or scroll to the right to see this button.
• Select the jtag_uart as the Byte Stream Device for stdio.
• Check the Ignore mismatched system ID option.
• Check the Ignore mismatched system timestamp option.

To run the software project on the Nios II processor:

• Press the Run button in the Run Configurations window.

This will re-build the software project to create an up–to-date executable and then download the code into memory on the BeMicroSDK hardware. The debugger resets the Nios II processor, and it executes the downloaded code. Note that the code is verified in memory before it is executed.