Designing with Nios® II Processor

This course will leverage your knowledge of the Platform Designer System Integration Tool (Qsys) and teach you to embed a Nios® II 32-bit microprocessor soft core into your FPGA design. This course focuses on the hardware aspects of using the processor with hands-on labs that get you up and running quickly. Through lectures and exercises you will configure the processor component, learn how the software build flow is incorporated into the hardware flow, perform debug and bring up of a design, simulate your Nios® II based design in ModelSim, and create custom instructions to perform hardware acceleration of software functions. At completion of the course, you will have the tools necessary to immediately start using the Nios® II processor in your own designs or on a development kit and be productive right away.

At Course Completion you will be able to:

• Configure & compile a Nios® II embedded processor design using Platform Designer System Integration Tool (Qsys) & Intel® Quartus® Prime Software.
• Create, compile, run, & debug embedded software projects for the Nios® II processor using the Nios® II Software Build Tools for Eclipse (SBTE)
• Verify your FPGA design functionality with the System Console & the Nios® II SBTE
• Simulate your Nios® II-based system in ModelSim
• Use the Platform Designer System Integration Tool (Qsys) to incorporate custom instructions into an embedded Nios® II system.
• Design with a Nios® II Development Kit

Prerequisites 

We recommend completing the following courses:

• Introduction to the Platform Designer System Integration Tool (Qsys).
• Intel® Quartus® Prime Software: Foundation
• The Intel® Quartus® Prime Software: Foundation (Online Training)
• Using the Intel® Quartus® Prime Software: An Introduction

Skills Required

• Background in digital logic design
• Working knowledge of the Intel® Quartus® Prime Software software.
• Working knowledge of the Platform Designer System Integration Tool (Qsys).
• Some (minimal) knowledge of programming in C for embedded systems

Follow-on Courses 

Upon completing this course, we recommend the following courses (in no particular order):

• Intel® Quartus® Prime Software: Foundation.
• Introduction to the Platform Designer System Integration Tool (Qsys).
• Advanced Platform Designer System Integration Tool (Qsys) Methodologies.