Hi,
I have a very simple Stratix SOPC system: An Avalon DMA block whose read and write masters both connect to a MegaRAM. The DMA control bus is mastered by Nios.
My DMA blocks registers are set up as:
np_dmareadaddress = 0x10000; // base of MegaRAM np_dmawriteaddress = 0x11000; // 1024 words in np_dmalength = 32; // xfer 32 bytes np_dmacontrol = 0x8C; // do 32-bit xfer, end when length=0 and GO!
I verified the registers by reading them back, and the status reg indicates operation just as I would expect.
When I simulate this system in Active-HDL everything works as expected. On actual hardware, unfortunately, I must always run the DMA operation twice to get the right data into MegaRAM - the first time always writes data to the destination address that is from the PREVIOUS time that I ran the DMA operation. It always write 4 words of old data; after these 4 words, the written data is current and correct.
The only way I can rationalize this is that the FIFO inside the DMA block is writing data to the destination before the source data has been read into it.
My questions are:
- Can I use the Avalon DMA block to DMA to/from MegaRAMs? Or do the source and/or destination resources have to be streaming slaves? (ie. can a streaming master such as DMA work with non-streaming slaves such as MegaRAMs?
- Why does simulation give me the correct results? Does it have to do with me running on Stratix, whereas Active-HDL may assume I'm running on Apex, etc?
- Is there a bug with the DMA block, or am I doing something stupid?