Due to a problem in the Quartus® II software version 13.1, users cannot dynamically set the Address Span expander to be / not be visible as memory for the Nios® II in Qsys.
When the CPU's memory is connected via Address Span Extender, the Nios® II Software Build Tools fails to create projects with following error message:
"SEVERE: CPU has no memories connected to its Avalon master(s)
WARNING: Tcl script "bsp-set-defaults.tcl " error: CPU has no memories connected to its Avalon master(s)
SEVERE: nios2-bsp-create-settings failed.
nios2-bsp: nios2-bsp-create-settings failed"
To workaround this issue in the Quartus II software version 13.1, and set the Address Span expander to be visible as memory for the Nios ® II remove the # characters from the line below in "altera_address_span_extender_hw.tcl" file located at "<install_dir>/ip/altera/merlin/altera_address_span_extender" line 546 and line 551.
before:
#set_interface_assignment windowed_slave embeddedsw.configuration.isMemoryDevice 1
#set_interface_assignment windowed_slave embeddedsw.configuration.affectsTransactionsOnMasters "expanded_master"
after:
set_interface_assignment windowed_slave embeddedsw.configuration.isMemoryDevice 1
set_interface_assignment windowed_slave embeddedsw.configuration.affectsTransactionsOnMasters "expanded_master"
This problem is scheduled to be fixed in a future release of the Quartus II software.