Nios® II Software Developer Handbook

ID 683525
Date 8/28/2023
Public
Document Table of Contents

4.3.3. Running Hello_World on an Intel FPGA Development Board

To run the hello_world example on an Intel FPGA development board, perform the following steps:
  1. Start the Nios® II Command Shell.
  2. Download the SRAM Object File (.sof) for the Quartus Prime project to the Intel FPGA development board.

    This step configures the FPGA on the Intel FPGA development board.

    Note:
    The .sof file resides in <projects>, along with your Intel® Quartus® Prime Project File (.qpf). You download it by typing the following commands:
    • cd <projects>
    • nios2-configure-sof

    The board is configured and ready to run the project’s executable code.

    The nios2-configure-sof utility runs the Intel® Quartus® Prime Programmer to download the .sof file. You can also run the quartus_pgm command directly.

    For more information about programming the hardware, refer to the Nios® II Hardware Development Tutorial.

  3. Start another command shell displaying both command shells on your desktop.
  4. In the second command shell, run the Nios® II terminal application to connect to the Intel FPGA development board through the JTAG UART port by typing the nios2-terminal command.
  5. Return to the original command shell and ensure that <projects>/software_examples/app/hello_world is the current working directory.
  6. Download and run the hello_world executable program using the nios2-download -g hello_world.elf command.
    Hello from Nios II! appears in the second command shell.