Introduction

PolarFire® FPGAs support the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) Initiator Programming mode for auto update and In-Application Programming (IAP). In this programming mode, the programming images are stored in an external SPI Flash memory.

• Auto update: On power-up, if the version of the update image is different from the current programmed version, the System Controller reads the update image bitstream from the external SPI Flash memory and programs the device.
• IAP: The user application initiates the program action and the System Controller reads the bitstream from the external SPI Flash memory to program the device.

The System Controller supports fetching programming images from the SPI Flash device based on the index value or direct addressing. The SPI directory contains the start addresses of the programming images.

The following components of the PolarFire devices are programmable:

• FPGA fabric
• Secure non-volatile memory (sNVM)
• User security settings (keys, passcodes, and locks)