The Debug Sprite can be used to debug applications running on a Cortex-M1 core embedded in an Altera FPGA supporting the System-Level Debug (SLD) architecture. Currently, the Sprite supports the Cyclone III FPGA Starter board on Microsoft Windows hosts.
The Debug Sprite accepts two forms of the
device-url for Altera devices.
For the common case where you have only one Altera Cortex-M1 device
configured, you can use simply:
altera://
The full form of the device-url is:
altera://usbX/hubY/nodeZ
where X, Y, and
Z are non-negative integers. The SLD
architecture forms a hierarchy; there may be multiple USB Blaster
devices (numbered by X), multiple Altera FPGAs
(numbered by Y) per USB Blaster, and multiple
nodes (numbered by Z) per FPGA.
The Debug Sprite can autodetect connected Altera Cortex-M1 devices.
Invoking the Sprite with the -i option, as described
in Section 6.1, “Probing for Debug Devices”, displays the
device-url for each detected device:
> arm-none-eabi-sprite -i ... altera: Altera SLD Hub altera://usb0/hub0/node1 - Altera Cortex-M Device
Follow these steps for initial installation and set up of the Altera device.
Install Quartus II Web Edition (or any equivalent), available from Altera.
Install drivers for USB Blaster, also available from Altera.
Install Sourcery CodeBench Lite for ARM EABI. See Chapter 2, “Installation and Configuration”.
Connect the board and the host computer with a USB cable.
Turn on the board.
Use Quartus II to download a
.sof file including a Cortex-M1 core
to the FPGA.
Use arm-none-eabi-sprite -i to
verify that the Sprite can detect the installed Cortex-M1 core.