SoC Embedded Design Suite

With the Altera^® SoC Embedded Design Suite (EDS), you get all the tools you need to work more productively, improve your software quality, and ultimately get to market faster.

The SoC EDS is a comprehensive tool suite for embedded software development on Altera SoC devices.
It contains development tools, utility programs, run-time software, and application examples to expedite firmware and application software.

ARM Development Studio 5 (DS-5) Altera Edition Toolkit

The SoC EDS includes an exclusive offering of the ARM Development Studio™ 5 (DS-5™) Altera Edition Toolkit. By combining the ARM DS-5 advanced multicore debugging capabilities with FPGA-adaptivity and a seamless link to the Altera’s SignalTap™ logic-analyzer, the toolkit provides embedded software developers an unprecedented level of full-chip visibility and control.

Figure 1. Altera SoC Embedded Design Suite

Hardware-to-Software Handoff

The hardware-to-software handoff utilities allow FPGA and software design teams to work independently and follow their respective familiar design flows. These utilities take the Altera Quartus^® II and Qsys output files and generate handoff files for the software design flow. As software engineers steer clear of FPGA development and focus on software design, they are more productive.

Figure 2. Altera Tools Facilitate Hardware-to-Software Handoff

Linux Application Development

• SoC EDS - Includes U-Boot and Linux build environments, source files, and pre-built binaries. For Altera SoC boards, these binaries can be run right out-of-the-box to jump start software development. Updated Linux and U-Boot board support packages can be downloaded from the SoC community portal, www.RocketBoards.org. The portal also hosts a Wiki site, mail list server, and project repository to aggregate community resources and enhance user productivity.
• Yocto support - The Linux build environment, based on the open-source Yocto project, provides an open, versatile, and cost-effective solution for developers. It also allows for easy transition to commercial embedded Linux distributions as most major vendors have adopted Yocto.

Firmware Development

Figure 3. Hardware Libraries Abstract SoC Hardware

The SoC EDS includes an embedded application binary interface (EABI) GNU compiler tool chain and SoC hardware libraries to support bare-metal usage. The SoC hardware libraries provide a low-level software interface to the underlying SoC hardware implementation. This application programming interface (API) provides easy access,, configuration, and control of SoC hardware resources. Target uses of SoC hardware libraries include: Board bring-up support Low-level access to SoC hardware capabilities Device driver development Diagnostic tool development Custom boot loader development Operating system porting Bare-metal application development

SoC EDS Availability

SoC EDS is available in two editions: Subscription Edition and the free Web Edition. Designed for firmware and bare-metal developers, Subscription Edition enables full FPGA-adaptive debugging. For Linux software developers, the free Web Edition allows application development over an Ethernet connection. For more information, contact your local Altera sales representative.

Table 1. SoC EDS Editions