CCFE is the fusion research arm of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

FPGA WorkshopJanuary 2011

Programming on-boardflash memory

Billy Huang / Graham Naylor

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FPGA Configuration

• There are two standard ways to configure the FPGA.– Configure it directly over JTAG. However this is volatile as the FPGA

does not remember its configuration after a power reboot.– Configure the flash on the board. The SP601 and SP605 and indeed

many other off-the-shelf FPGA boards are designed so that they willload a specially formatted (PROM) bitstream file from the flash intothe FPGA. This is more desirable so that the FPGA does not need tobe configured on power up every time.

• These slides will guide you through creating the speciallyformatted PROM file from the bitstream, and configuring theFPGA with this file.

• In general there is more than one type of flash on an FPGAboard. The instructions here pertain to the parallel BPI flash,which is generally much faster. Although for multi-bootconfigurations serial SPI is used, since the interface is muchsimpler.

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• On the SP605: Set the DIP switches as shown.

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• On the SP601: Set the DIP switches as shown.

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Create PROM File

• Launch iMPACT. This is a file which can managebitstreams for loading onto FPGAs.

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• Hit no or cancel to any of these boxes.

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• Double click “Create PROM File”

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Select the PROM Settings

• SP605 - JS28F256P30 32MB 16 Bit

• SP601 - TE28F128J3D 16 MB 8 Bit

• Change browse folder to .../sp60X_bist_6b_up_12.2

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• OK

• A file browse screen will pop up – navigate to:

• sp60X_bist_6b_up_12.2/SDK/SDK_Workspace_35/hw_platform_0/download.bit

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• No

• Ok

• Ok

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• Select “Generate File” as highlighted below. You will thenget a “Generate Succeeded” notification.

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• Now we have create the .MCS file, which is thebitstream formatted for loading onto the flashmemory.

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• Double click boundary scan. Then right click andinitialize chain.

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• If initialize chain isn’t working try to power the boardoff and on, and kill any xmd.exe processes.

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• Hit no

• Keep pressing Cancel until the popups are gone.

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• Navigate to the PROM (.MCS) file which wasinstructed above.

• SP605 - JS28F256P30 32MB 16 Bit

• SP601 - TE28F128J3D 16 MB 8 Bit

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• Right click the FLASH box and click program. ClickOk on the next screen.

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• You should now find that when you reset the board using the PROGbutton (not the power switch) you will see the text as shown.

• IMPORTANT: If using the on/off switch you will have to close yourterminal program, and re-open it, however in all likelihood you will notopen it in time to see the output – use the reset button instead to see it.

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• You now have a working microblaze embeddedsystem, running a first stage bootloader. Next weneed to get the second stage bootloader U-Bootcompiled and copied into the flash at your desiredlocation (as mentioned above for this workshop wewant it placed at 0x87180000).