Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: Debug Tools

ID 683552
Date 9/24/2018
Public
Document Table of Contents

5.3.3. Adding Signals with a Plug-In

Instead of adding individual or grouped signals through the Node Finder, you can use a plug-in to add groups of relevant signals of a particular type of IP. Besides easy signal addition, plug-ins provide features such as pre-designed mnemonic tables, useful for trigger creation and data viewing, as well as the ability to disassemble code in captured data. The Signal Tap Logic Analyzer comes with one plug-in for the Nios® II processor.

The Nios® II plug-in, for example, creates one mnemonic table in the Setup tab and two tables in the Data tab:

  • Nios® II Instruction (Setup tab)—Capture all the required signals for triggering on a selected instruction address.
  • Nios® II Instance Address (Data tab)—Display address of executed instructions in hexadecimal format or as a programming symbol name if defined in an optional Executable and Linking Format (.elf) file.
  • Nios® II Disassembly (Data tab)—Display disassembled code from the corresponding address.

To add signals to the .stp file using a plug-in, perform the following steps after running Analysis and Elaboration on your design:

  1. To ensure that all the required signals are available, in the Intel® Quartus® Prime software, click Assignments > Settings > Compiler Settings > Advanced Settings (Synthesis). Turn on Create debugging nodes for IP cores.
    All the signals included in the plug-in are added to the node list.
  2. Right-click the node list. On the Add Nodes with Plug-In submenu, select the plug-in you want to use, such as the included plug-in named Nios® II .
    The Select Hierarchy Level dialog box appears showing the IP hierarchy of your design. If the IP for the selected plug-in does not exist in your design, a message informs you that you cannot use the selected plug-in.
  3. Select the IP that contains the signals you want to monitor with the plug-in, and click OK.
    • If all the signals in the plug-in are available, a dialog box might appear, depending on the plug-in, where you can specify options for the plug-in.
  4. With the Nios® II plug-in, you can optionally select an .elf containing program symbols from your Nios® II Integrated Development Environment (IDE) software design. Specify options for the selected plug-in, and click OK.