I have a vhdl design that is created in Xilinx ISE and I would like to bring it over to the XPS/EDK 14.2 as a pcore. The issue is, I am not really sure how I should be hooking it up. The XPS utility gives me the option of an AXI Burst bus. Am I suppose to create an interface to hook up the AXI signals to my module? I am not really sure how I am suppose to use it as a pcore, since I am new to the XPS tool. I was under the impression the XPS tool would make the appropriate hook ups for me (i.e. ACLK would connect to my clock, etc.).
Any background information would be appreciated. I am only finding tutorials with the older version of XPS and it doesn't really cover my issue.
Have you looked into tools like ImpulseC from Impulse Accelerated Technologies?
I have had years of good results using that tool to develop pcores in ANSI-C and them exporting the results into correctly formed Xilinx pcores.
If you asked, I'm sure you could get a demo license to see if it would help in your situation.
It spits everything out in VHDL and you can read through the results to see how to do it.
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I bought a SAMD21G18A (ARM Cortex M0+) from RobotDYN and trying to simply get setup to program it but I can not find much documentation on how these are connected/setup for programming and debugging.
On the website it states "One of its most important features is Atmel’s Embedded Debugger (EDBG), which provides a full debug interface without the need for additional hardware..." so I assumed that the connections would be similar to some of the other MCU Development Boards like the Arduino, PI or Beaglebone meaning that there isn't any need for things like a JTAG Programmer but I don't know if that's the case or maybe I am just confused on how to set this up.
Can anyone point me in the right direction on how to upload the program and get my IDE setup? I can find all sorts of information on the Registers, the newlib library and stuff like that, but I can not find much on the actual connections or other needed components.
I would prefer Visual Studio +VisualGDB if anyone uses that combo but I will take any help so I can just get started. I also have tried Atmel Studio and the Arduino IDE also without success. Just to mention I am not looking for a step by step guide, just some direction and explanation of how I should proceed.
When I installed the Arduino IDE I was able to get the board to show up under COM11 as a Arduino-M0, so possibly I am simply missing some drivers?
Edit:
I have been searching the internet for possible ways of hooking this up and it seems like I need to have some sort of programmer/debugger. I also found there are a couple types of these boards out there, one of them is the XPlained series. I looked at the schematics and they have a ATMega in addition to the ATSAMD21. I have a variety of AVR's, BeagleBone Black and also a FTDI CDM USB cable. Does anyone know if its possible to use any of these to setup for programming/debugging?
Your SAMD21 board from RobotDYN doesn't have the Atmel EDBG interface, so you need an external SWD debugger like the Atmel-ICE you mentioned in your comment.
This debugger comes with the standard 10-pin Cortex Debug Connector, which is also present on the RobotDYN SAMD21 board (labeled "SWD(EDBG)", which is a bit unfortunate since it seems to suggest this is an EDBG interface, which it isn't). So the only connection needed is between these two connectors via the flat cable that is likely included in your Atmel-ICE kit. Pay attention to how you connect the cable to the RobotDYN SAMD21 board: the first pin of the 10-pin header (i.e. the one with a "1" label next to it on the PCB) must correspond to the first pin on the the Atmel-ICE connector, which is the pin at the bottom left. See also http://microchipdeveloper.com/atmelice:connecting-to-avr-and-sam-target-devices.
I'm trying to find a good GUI library I could use to create a program on the computer that connects to a microcontroller by USB. I've never done any GUI work before but I have done a lot of webpage design/tools. We are going to program the microcontroller with C but I don't think the GUI will need to be C. It needs to work on Windows, so probably compile on Windows too. I've also never done any USB transmission but I'm hoping to take it one step at a time.
Right now I'm looking at using GTK but it needs a bunch of other things to download with it. I'm also going to look at QT and someone else suggested making a Windows Forms Application. There's a lot of options out there so I'm having trouble figuring it out.
As for my requirement, it just needs to be a very simple GUI that has a few control buttons, a display area (info from microcontroller), a notification area (basically error messages go here), and maybe a graph. I've included a prototype GUI help give you an idea of what I'm doing.
Edit: It needs to run and compile on Windows. We don't really have a budget for it, free open source is preferred. I don't need something elaborate and fancy, I just want to get it done as fast as possible.
We are using a TTL-232R cable, UART interface. I know nothing about USB transmission, school has crushed me.
From what you've specified, I would set base-camp up at Java.
Java in Eclipse to write the code.
Java Swing libraries (helped by the WindowBuilder plugin for Eclipse) to "draw" the GUI. It is very easy to create "Windowsy" GUIs using these.
JFreeGraph libaries to allow you to create graphs very easily, again from within Eclipse.
RXTX library for "virtual COM port" serial communication within Java (it doesn't sound like you're using proper USB, but just RS232 with a USB adapter).
Your created GUI would run on any machine with Java installed, which is not a big ask for the end user. You can even create a Windows executable/installer from the resulting Java files if you wanted it to be a (apparently) native Windows application.
And - bonus - all the tools mentioned are free as a bird.
It will kind of depend on what kind of compiler, IDE, etc you will settle on. If you are going to windows cold, and
money is an issue, then open source is always a good thing to look at. I have enjoyed using eclipse and Code::Blocks IDEs. For C/C++, I use minGW. In terms of GUI plug-ins, HERE are some conversation with GUI recommendations specifically for use with Code::Blocks.
If money is not an issue, I have use National Instruments LabWindows/CVI full dev kit forever. It is one of the easiest ANSI C compilers/IDE I have ever used. It is only ANSI C, but has extensions to make using instrumentation easy. I have written a little USB stuff (not much), sockets, instrumentation, and many GUI apps.
Please comment what tools you currently prefer, I may have other suggestions.
Lazarus CodeTyphon has cross platform native compiler with GUI working on every supported platform. It supports 8 OS-CPU host layers (Win32, Win64, Linux32, Linux64, FreeBSD32, FreeBSD64, Solaris32 and Solaris64), and 25+ OS-CPU target layers. It also incorporates many graphical widgets and SCADA like behaviour with PascalSCADA and other components. There are wrappers for LibUSB.
I would use Microsoft Visual Studio to develop the GUI. They offer a free version called Express. I would use the C# language but MSVS supports other languages as well so just choose whichever you're most comfortable with. The best thing about MSVS is that there are millions of developers out there, which means that you will be able to search for and find lots of examples for how to use an RS-232 COM port or USB interface. I'm guessing that you'll be able to find GUI objects for graphing and other objects as well. (The basic stuff like buttons and edit boxes is all built into MSVS.)
BTW, you need to sort out whether you're using an RS-232 COM port or a USB interface. They're both serial interfaces but they're not the same thing. Either could work.
Is there any quite good tool to generate State Machine graph from VHDL code? I'm using Xilinx ISE Webpack. Cheers!
Active HDL has a feature called "Code2Graphics" which supports this.
Additionally, some synthesis tools (typically ones you would have to pay for) also support this.
Note that an RTL view is more commonly available in synthesis tools (such as XST).
Modelsim SE (and DE?) have these kind of things. But, not for free :-(
I am working with a peripheral device that needs to be communicated through serial. I can send it commands using HyperTerminal, but now I need to write programs that will let me do it without HyperTerminal. Can somebody point me to a website and/or show me a sample hello world program to get me started? I have searched through many sites which give me uncompilable/ancient VC6 code.
In order to interface with the serial port, you open a file with one of the special filenames "COM1" through "COM9". For serial ports with higher numbers, the special filename begins with \\?\, which in C/C++ code must be escaped as "\\\\?\\COM10", etc.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms810467.aspx has a really good tutorial on using the serial port. Note that you should use the Windows file I/O functions such as CreateFile(), ReadFile(), and WriteFile(). I'm not sure if it will work to use standard I/O functions such as fopen(), fread(), and fwrite().
Microsoft provides an article with sample code describing how to do this under Win32.
Boost:asio may be able to help as a serial device was added recently.
Fair warning though; the serial port documentation is light, presumably since it's quite new (it was added in asio 1.1.1 which was included in boost 1.36).
But working your way through asio is, IMHO, a better solution than using the raw Win32 API. Why? It'll be easier to read and maintain (it's a higher level API) and it'll be cross platform (except where you need to specify the OS-specific device name).
The Boost - Users and asio.user mailing lists are quite active and friendly and ought to be able to help you out if you get stuck.
If using .NET 2.0 see System.IO.Ports and this article should be helpful. If direct Win32, then Adam's answer is best.
I believe you will find plenty of sample code for C# as well if you find VC6 too ancient. I think there are also a bunch of "free" serial/COM port wrappers but I just wrote my own when I wrote an RS232 device controller piece of software.
google C# and serial port or rs232
I got these:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.ports.serialport.aspx
http://msmvps.com/blogs/coad/archive/2005/03/23/SerialPort-_2800_RS_2D00_232-Serial-COM-Port_2900_-in-C_2300_-.NET.aspx
You should have no problem finding suitable code with a google search.
My company is trying to build a pcb with an obsolete xilinx fpga (XC3042A) which is part of the XC3000 series chips. Does anyone have any experience programming the data to the chip? I'm looking for what software, hardware, etc. people have used.
I have programmed old Xilinx chips (XC4010XL) using a custom built interface to the ISA bus.
I used Turbo-C on a DOS box and a home-made ISA card with '245 (bidir transceiver) and a 74LS74 (dual flip flop D) for strobe signals on a slave parallel configuration.
It is not difficult to implement the same using a parallel port, for instance.
You should be able to find the programming specs from the Xilinx website. They provide documentation on the different methods used in programming their FPGA. It should be in their AppNotes. They have several modes - typically slave serial or select map (parallel). That means some sort of SPI flash, or parallel flash, or JTAG.
If you look around, you may find schematics for a DIY programming cable too! You can also interface a small micro, say a 8-bit PIC to handle the programming specs while you design your own custom interface to it or interface it to a SD card or something else.
The current Xilinx tools and cables will program old parts.
The XC3000 series does not use the JTAG interface, so you can not use the Xilinx programmer to download your configuration.
You can do so by either using an external EPROM or an embedded processor to download the code.
Take a look at this applications note from Xilinx:
http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/application_notes/xapp090.pdf
For daisy chain:
http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/application_notes/xapp091.pdf
It describes the data format as well as signal info for downloading the configuration file to the FPGA.
You can use older version of the Xilinx programmer from their web site and configure the devices, I believe the last version of the xilinx supporting the 3000 series was version 8 but I am not sure.
Check out FTDI. You might be able to convince them to go with some updated hardware. It's currently $150 CAD for USB + FPGA, and $80 CAD extra if you bundle it with a Manual. Plus shipping.
It even supports the free web kit available from the Xilinx website.