AV-51001
2013.05.06
33
Hardware and Software Development
Related Information
Cyclone V Device Family Pin Connection Guidelines
Provides detailed information about power supply pin connection guidelines and power regulator sharing.
Hardware and Software Development
For hardware development, you can configure the HPS and connect your soft logic in the FPGA fabric to
the HPS interfaces using the Qsys system integration tool in the Quartus II software.
For software development, the ARM-based SoC FPGA devices inherit the rich software development
ecosystem available for the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor. The software development process for
Altera SoC FPGAs follows the same steps as those for other SoC devices from other manufacturers. Support
for Linux, VxWorks®, and other operating systems will be available for the SoC FPGAs. For more information
on the operating systems support availability, contact the Altera sales team.
You can begin device-specific firmware and software development on the Altera SoC FPGA Virtual Target.
The Virtual Target is a fast PC-based functional simulation of a target development system—a model of a
complete development board that runs on a PC. The Virtual Target enables the development of device-specific
production software that can run unmodified on actual hardware.
Related Information
Altera Worldwide Sales Support
Dynamic and Partial Reconfiguration
The Arria V devices support dynamic reconfiguration and partial reconfiguration25.
Dynamic Reconfiguration
The dynamic reconfiguration feature allows you to dynamically change the transceiver data rates, PMA
settings, or protocols of a channel, without affecting data transfer on adjacent channels. This feature is ideal
for applications that require on-the-fly multiprotocol or multirate support. You can reconfigure the PMA,
PCS, and PCIe hard IP blocks with dynamic reconfiguration.
Partial Reconfiguration
Note: Partial reconfiguration is an advanced feature of the device family. If you are interested in using
partial reconfiguration, contact Altera for support.
Partial reconfiguration allows you to reconfigure part of the device while other sections of the device remain
operational. This capability is important in systems with critical uptime requirements because it allows you
to make updates or adjust functionality without disrupting services.
Apart from lowering cost and power consumption, partial reconfiguration increases the effective logic density
of the device because placing device functions that do not operate simultaneously is not necessary. Instead,
you can store these functions in external memory and load them whenever the functions are required. This
25
Partial reconfiguration is an advanced feature of the device family. If you are interested in using partial
reconfiguration, contact Altera for support.
Arria V Device Overview
Altera Corporation
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