Nios® V Processor Software Developer Handbook

ID 743810
Date 5/26/2023
Public

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Document Table of Contents

5.2.3.1. Device Model Classes

The HAL provides models for the following classes of devices:
  • Character-mode devices—Hardware peripherals that either or both send or receive characters serially, such as a UART.
  • Timer devices—Hardware peripherals that count clock ticks and can generate periodic interrupt requests.
  • File subsystems—A mechanism for accessing files stored in physical device(s).
    • Depending on the internal implementation, the file subsystem driver might access the underlying device(s) directly or use a separate device driver. For example, you can write a flash file subsystem driver that accesses flash using the HAL API for flash memory devices.
  • Ethernet devices—Devices that provide access to an Ethernet connection for a networking stack. You need a networking stack to use an ethernet device.
  • Direct memory access (DMA) devices—Peripherals that perform bulk data transactions from a data source to a destination. Sources and destinations can be memory or another device, such as an Ethernet connection.
  • Flash memory devices—Non-volatile memory devices that use a special programming protocol to store data.