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 Limerick(7) - Build/Run Hello World for FPGA Board 3/26/2023

 


Hello, everyone. Welcome to the seventh episode of FPGA limerick. In this episode, we will get our hands dirty, to build the Hello Word example in the previous episodes, and to load it onto a FPGA board for Blinking LED.

First of all, as we mentioned in the first episode, we will use the Arty A7-100T board from Digilent as our main FPGA development board. The board can be found in this link:

https://digilent.com/shop/arty-a7-100t-artix-7-fpga-development-board/

 

Tool Installation

And to build the Hello Word example, we need to do the following:

1. Install the Vivado


The Vivado can be downloaded from
https://www.xilinx.com/support/download.html

We will use Vivado 2022.2 as our Vivado version. Please download and install it from Xilinx website. If you want to save disk space, you can only install 7 Series for devices. 

 


And Digilent also has some detailed instructions for installing the tools:

https://digilent.com/reference/programmable-logic/guides/installing-vivado-and-sdk


2. Install the Board File

In addition, Digilent has also provided a board file for the Arty A7-100T board, which can be found on GitHub

https://github.com/Digilent/vivado-boards/tree/master/new/board_files/arty-a7-100/E.0/1.1

 

This board will be helpful if we do the design in IP integrator. And the instructions to install the board file under Vivado can also be found in

 
https://digilent.com/reference/programmable-logic/guides/installing-vivado-and-sdk

After the tool installation is completed, please add Vivado binary path (default is C:\Xilinx\Vivado\2022.2\bin) to the system path.

 

Build the Hello World


The Hello World can be built with the following steps:


1. Checkout the FpgaLimerick repo


git clone --depth 1 --branch v1.2.3 https://github.com/PulseRain/FpgaLimerick.git

2. Open a command prompt, enter the FpgaLimerick\HelloWorld\synth path, and run
build.cmd

 
And this script will do the following:
 

  1) Call SBT to configure and generate the verilog file. As we intended to create a HelloWorld that can blink the LED, the output clock frequency is set to be 3Hz.


  2) Create a Vivado project that contains the following:
      a) The core of the Hello World (NcoCounter.v)
      b) A MMCM that generates the clock (based on the 100MHz onboard oscillator)
      c) A xdc constraint file (under HelloWorld/synth/constraints)
      d) The top level wrapper (HelloWorld/srv/verilog/HelloWorld_ArtyA7_100T.sv)

  3) Build the project under Vivado command line
  4) Check the timing of the result

 

Program the FPGA board with the bit files.


Open Vivado 2022.2, and open hardware manager. The bit file(*.bit) is under 


HelloWorld\synth\HelloWorld_ArtyA7_100T\HelloWorld_ArtyA7_100T.runs\impl_1\ HelloWorld_ArtyA7_100T.bit

And if you want to program the flash on the board so that the bit file can be autoloaded, you can use the *.bin file
 

As for the SPI device on the FPGA board, please choose  s25fl128sxxxxxx0-spi-x1_x2_x4

 



    Posted by FPGA Limerick at March 26, 2023 0 Comments  

 Limerick(6) - SpinalHDL Tutorial: the Simulation Flow of Hello World 3/19/2023


Hello, everyone. Welcome to the sixth episode of FPGA limerick. In this episode, we will take a close look at the simulation flow of SpinalHDL. And we will use the Hello World as an example for demonstration purpose.

Verification Methodology

Generally speaking, when it comes to digital circuits, there are two approaches for verification. 

1. Formal Verification

The formal verification is more like a math approach, because basically every digital circuit is nothing but a mapping from input to output, which mathematically fits the definition of Function. 

In that sense, the DUT is treated as a math function, whose property is described by SVA (System Verilog Assertion), as illustrated below:


As it is like a math approach, there is no need to prepare test vectors for input and output. And the formal verification tool will use analytic method to check the DUT against those SVAs, and to make sure those properties are satisfied in all conditions.

SpinalHDL also supports Formal Verification, which can be found in


Because Formal Verification is an analytic method, no simulation is needed. We will just leave the rest of it to inquisitive viewers.


2. Functional Simulation

This is the main topic we will discuss today. And for functional simulation, there are also two approaches:
a) static approach, for which we will prepare the expected input/output before hand and make them as test vectors. After the simulation run, the simulation output is matched against the test vectors to verify the DUT, as illustrated below



b) dynamic approach, for which the input is randomized. And the simulation output is compared against a functional model to verify the DUT, as illustrated below:



In the figure above, the driver will generate the random inputs, and feed them to both the simulator and the functional model. And the monitor will capture the simulation outputs, and feed them into the checker to match against the functional model.

Simulation Flow for SpinalHDL 

For SpinalHDL, it can support multiple simulators as its backend. And the fastest one will be verilator.


As illustrated in the figure above, the DUT will be compiled into verilog and passed onto the verilator. The verilator will turn them into C++ code and use GCC to make a shared object. The test bench in scala, together with shared object, will finally produce the waveform dump. 

Currently the waveform dump can be in either VCD format or FST format. Comparing to VCD (a text format), the FST is a binary format and is a lot smaller than the VCD. So we would recommend using the FST format. Both VCD and FST can be viewed by GTKWave (https://gtkwave.sourceforge.net/)


Now let’s take a look at the test bench in Hello World example
The code can be checked out with

git clone --depth 1 --branch v1.2.3 https://github.com/PulseRain/FpgaLimerick.git

The test bench is under 

HelloWorld/test/spinal/NcoCounterSim.scala

First of all, please note that although SpinalHDL is built on top of Scala language, the test bench is 100% in vanilla Scala. In other words, the test bench is not in SpinalHDL at all. So when we try to get and compare the value from DUT, every data type originally in SpinalHDL has to be converted into Scala type. For example, the IO port could be “bits” in SpinalHDL. But when comparing it to the test vector, we need to use .toInt or .toLong to convert it to a data type understandable by vanilla Scala. Another example is the Boolean type. In SpinalHDL, the Boolean type is actually spelled as Bool, and the True/False literature is spelled with the first level as capital letter. But for vanilla scala language, the Boolean type is spelled as Boolean, with the true/false literature spelled in all small letter. So when we need to use .toBoolean to convert the Boolean type in SpinalHDL to the one in vanilla Scala.

Also, when we drive the DUT’s input ports, we also need to use data type from vanilla Scala. For the Boolean type, it means we should use “true/false” instead of “True/False”, and the syntax would be like

dut.io.srst #= false

Boilerplate Code for Test Bench

As we can see from the Hello World example, the Scala testbench is pretty much in boilerplate form. And we need the following method call:

.withConfig 
For the validation of the simulation, this SpinalConfig should match the one used by the DUT generation.

.withWave / .withFstWave / .withVcdWave
If waveform dump is needed, please use those methods to specify the dump format. As we will use verilator as our backend simulator, using .withFstWave is recommended.

.compile
Instantiate the DUT in this method
.doSim
Now this is the main body of the simulation, which we will elaborate next

Multithread Simulation

The Hello World example we use here demonstrates the static approach (test vector matching) for Functional Simulation. (And we will demonstrate the dynamic in later episodes when we talk about cocotb)

The main body of the simulation is contained in the .doSim method in the testbench. It basically has three threads:

*) clkThread
*) measure
*) compare

And they are forked when they are created, and then joined afterwards. For more complicated designs, more than one compare thread could be launched to match multiple test vectors.

The measure thread is not typical in the verification. It is just included in the Hello World as a way to sanity check the verification.

The clkThread is used to initialized the test, and keep track of the start/end of the test with accurate clock count.

To View the Wave

After the simulation, if the waveform is dumped, we can use GTKWave to view the wave. On Windows, the GTKWave can be installed in MSYS2. Please open MSYS2 MINGW64, and type in 

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gtkwave

And then open a command prompt and type in “gtkwave” to launch the waveviewer. For the Hello World example, the wave dump (.fst or .vcd) can be found as .simWorkspace/NcoCounter/test.fst

    Posted by FPGA Limerick at March 19, 2023 0 Comments  

 Limerick(5) - SpinalHDL Tutorial: the Design Flow of Hello World 3/11/2023



Hello, everyone! Welcome to the fifth episode of FPGA limerick. In this episode, we will take a close look at the “Hello World” example for SpinalHDL. And based on that, we will also demonstrate the basic design flow for SpinalHDL.

As mentioned in previous episodes, the Hello World can be checked out like

git clone --depth 1 --branch v1.1.4 https://github.com/PulseRain/FpgaLimerick.git

 

The folder structure of Hello World

And for a fresh checkout, it has the following files:

*) Files at the top level

                build.sbt: configuration file for SBG

                .scalafix.conf: configuration file for scalafix (linter)

                scalastyle-config.xml: configuration file for scalastyle (linter)

                .scalafmt.conf: configuration file for scalafmt (formatter)

 

*) Folder:

                src/spinal: project source for SpinalHDL

                src/main/resources/log4j2.xml: configuration file for log4j2

                test/spinal: test bench in SpinalHDL

                test/cocotb: test bench using cocotb

                project: additional configuration files for SBT

 

And the HelloWorld can also serve as a template for other projects. You can find a script called “make_new_prj.sh” under the scripts folder. And it can be used to create a new project folder using HelloWorld as the template. (Please run it under WSL.)

 

The design flow of SpinalHDL

 

As illustrated above, the general design flow for SpinalHDL is to:
1. Setup the Parameters of the SpinalHDL top module
2. Feed the source code into SpinalConfig
3. Generate the output in Verilog, System Verilog or VHDL


And now let's take a close look to the HelloWorld example to see how the flow works.

The background of the HelloWorld Example: NCO Counter

The HelloWorld is actually an example of NCO Counter. NCO stands for Numerically Controlled Oscillator. It tries to output a new clock (an enable pulse train actually) from on a base clock. The frequency of the output clock and the frequency of the base clock are predefined by parameters.

And mathematically, we need to do the following:
1.    Find the GCD of the base clock and the output clock
2.    Use the GCD to simplify the ratio between output clock and the base clock, i.e:

3.    Once we get the simplified ratio of n over m, we can set the NCO counter like the following:
  a)    Set the counter value to be zero (The initial phase)
  b)    For every base clock cycle, counter = (counter + n) mod m
  c)    Generate a pulse (output clock) every time the counter rolls over m

 

The code structure of the SpinalHDL module

Now let’s take a look at the code structure of the HelloWorld Example:
 

1.    package

To following the naming convention of JAVA package, the package name is often the reverse form of a URL. But you are also free to choose other name formats as you see fit. For example, in our FpgaLimerick repo, all the common code is placed in a package called “common”


2.    import

This is like the include section for Verilog or C++. And you can use scalafix to find and remove the unused imports.


3.    case class extends Component

This is similar to the “module” in Verilog. The SpinalHDL coding convention recommends using “case class” instead of “class” in scala.

4.    The parameters of the module. Here we use the convention for parameters as all capital letter with G_ prefix. (G stands for generics, a reminiscent from VHDL)

5.    A bundle for port list

6.    The main body of the design (combinatorial logic and sequential logic)

7.    And a companion object that contains the main function, which will generate the verilog / system verilog / VHDL based on the configuration.

Now, comparing to verilog, it is a cinch for SpinalHDL to get GCD value, as SpinalHDL is based on a high level programming language scala. If we want to do the same implementation in verilog, we have to jump through a lot of hoops to get the GCD value, as verilog’s system functions are very primitive and do not cover GCD directly. Even if you can find a way to calculate the GCD with verilog’s system functions, I bet the code would be bulky and messy.


Configuration and Code Generation

The Hello World uses the MainConfig to generate the code. The MainConfig can be found in common/MainConfig.scala, which is derived from SpinalConfig (in Spinal.scala from spinalhdl-core)

And in the MainConfig, the targetDirectory to be “gen”, and it sets the async reset to be active low.

Summary

From the Hello World example, it shows that the SpinalHDL is much more powerful and flexible for design parameterization.


    Posted by FPGA Limerick at March 11, 2023 0 Comments  

   

 

    

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