Interface Xilinx KC705 to BeagleBone?

[pfraser]

I'm playing with the idea of interfacing a BeagleBone
(cheap dual ARM Cortex A8 board) to a Xilinx KC705
Kintex development board. This will give me much more
CPU processing power than a microblaze could.

I thought I could probably do it with a passive interface
because the Kintex can deal with 3.3 Volt I/O.

I'd probably use a Xilinx 105 debug board on the FMC
HPC connector, and hand build an interface board between
the debug board and the BeagleBone.

That would leave the LPC connector free for an Avnet
HDMI input board (I'm playing around with some video
processing / measurement ideas).

I would then develop a Angstrom Linux driver for
the TI GPMC interface to the Kintex.

Anybody see any flaws in this plan? Any advice?
Anybody done some / all of this already, and prepared
to share so that I don't need to re-invent the wheel?

Thanks

Pete

 

[Uwe Bonnes]

pfraser <pete_fraser@comcast.net> wrote:

I'm playing with the idea of interfacing a BeagleBone
(cheap dual ARM Cortex A8 board) to a Xilinx KC705
Kintex development board. This will give me much more
CPU processing power than a microblaze could.

I thought I could probably do it with a passive interface
because the Kintex can deal with 3.3 Volt I/O.

I'd probably use a Xilinx 105 debug board on the FMC
HPC connector, and hand build an interface board between
the debug board and the BeagleBone.

That would leave the LPC connector free for an Avnet
HDMI input board (I'm playing around with some video
processing / measurement ideas).

I would then develop a Angstrom Linux driver for
the TI GPMC interface to the Kintex.

Anybody see any flaws in this plan? Any advice?
Anybody done some / all of this already, and prepared
to share so that I don't need to re-invent the wheel?

Did you think about the ZYNC and the ZED board (http://www.zedboard.org)?
If availability really starts August, you will have much less hassle to
start...

Bye
--
Uwe Bonnes bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik Schlossgartenstrasse 9 64289 Darmstadt
--------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------

 

[BobH]

I don't know the status of it, but this is listed in the "Cape Board
Registry": http://specialcomp.com/beaglebone/BeagleBone_FPGA.html

If you dig into this, please post the status here.

BobH


On 7/22/2012 1:27 PM, pfraser wrote:

I'm playing with the idea of interfacing a BeagleBone
(cheap dual ARM Cortex A8 board) to a Xilinx KC705
Kintex development board. This will give me much more
CPU processing power than a microblaze could.

I thought I could probably do it with a passive interface
because the Kintex can deal with 3.3 Volt I/O.

I'd probably use a Xilinx 105 debug board on the FMC
HPC connector, and hand build an interface board between
the debug board and the BeagleBone.

That would leave the LPC connector free for an Avnet
HDMI input board (I'm playing around with some video
processing / measurement ideas).

I would then develop a Angstrom Linux driver for
the TI GPMC interface to the Kintex.

Anybody see any flaws in this plan? Any advice?
Anybody done some / all of this already, and prepared
to share so that I don't need to re-invent the wheel?

Thanks

Pete

 

[rickman]

On Sunday, July 22, 2012 4:27:45 PM UTC-4, pfraser wrote:

I'm playing with the idea of interfacing a BeagleBone
(cheap dual ARM Cortex A8 board) to a Xilinx KC705
Kintex development board. This will give me much more
CPU processing power than a microblaze could.

I thought I could probably do it with a passive interface
because the Kintex can deal with 3.3 Volt I/O.

I'd probably use a Xilinx 105 debug board on the FMC
HPC connector, and hand build an interface board between
the debug board and the BeagleBone.

That would leave the LPC connector free for an Avnet
HDMI input board (I'm playing around with some video
processing / measurement ideas).

I would then develop a Angstrom Linux driver for
the TI GPMC interface to the Kintex.

Anybody see any flaws in this plan? Any advice?
Anybody done some / all of this already, and prepared
to share so that I don't need to re-invent the wheel?

Thanks

Pete

It seems the BB has a peripheral mux on all the pins so you can wire the FPGA to the BB in pretty much any pinout and get to any of the peripherals (I'm not sure if there are limitations). But I would suggest that you duplicate the pinout of the LCD7 which seems to use a parallel interface and you might be able to reuse some of the driver code. I'm thinking of doing something similar. You might even be able to multiplex the interface and use it for both the FPGA board and the LCD7 display.

They are doing a 3.5" display, but I don't know if the specs are available for that yet. They weren't the last time I looked.

Rick

 

[pfraser]

Uwe Bonnes wrote:

Did you think about the ZYNC and the ZED board (http://www.zedboard.org)?
If availability really starts August, you will have much less hassle to
start...

I wasn't familiar with that board.
It looks interesting, and the price is right.

The FPGA is way underpowered for the video processing I would
want to do, but perhaps I could use this board instead of
the BeagleBone, and couple it to the KC705 with an FMC to FMC
cable. That would be a lot simpler mechanically than using the
BeagleBone.

I had originally intended to use perf board with connectors
for the FMC-105-Debug, and headers for the BeagleBone but
unfortunately the 105 (which I own) and the similar TED parts
(which I don't) have connectors which are not set on 0.1"
centers. That means an even worse mechanical kludge.

So, in favor of the ZED board is mechanical neatness, and
less work hacking up sections of perf board and gluing them
together (though I would need to check that I could present
the appropriate signals to the ZED board's LPC connector).
Also, it's A9 rather than A8.

In favor of the BeagleBoard is a reasonably mature Angstom
distribution, and a full user community. Who knows what
distribution will be available for the ZED board initially?

Thanks

Pete

 

[pfraser]

rickman wrote:

But I would suggest that you duplicate the pinout of the LCD7
which seems to use a parallel interface and you might be able
to reuse some of the driver code. I'm thinking of doing something
similar. You might even be able to multiplex the interface and
use it for both the FPGA board and the LCD7 display.

Unfortunately the LCD7 seems to use the TI chip's dedicated
16-bit LCD interface. It looks like it probably uses mux mode 0,
so I suspect the GPMC is still available, but they don't seem
to use the GPMC.

Thanks

Pete

 

[Jon Elson]

pfraser wrote:

I'm playing with the idea of interfacing a BeagleBone
(cheap dual ARM Cortex A8 board) to a Xilinx KC705
Kintex development board. This will give me much more
CPU processing power than a microblaze could.

I thought I could probably do it with a passive interface
because the Kintex can deal with 3.3 Volt I/O.
I did this with the older Beagle Board, where the I/O is 1.8 V.

I set up a Spartan 3AN FPGA with one bank at 1.8 V to interface to the
Beagle, and the other 3 banks at 3.3 V for outside I/O. It is working
quite nicely. If you have not dealt with user level to GPIO on the
ARM processors, it is a bit complex, as there are multiplexers to
swap various I/O devices onto the limited package pins. Then you set
up memory mapping pointers to the GPIO registers, and you have to carefully
mask off the pins that are in use by other parts of the system.

Jon

 

[Jon Elson]

BobH wrote:

I don't know the status of it, but this is listed in the "Cape Board
Registry": http://specialcomp.com/beaglebone/BeagleBone_FPGA.html
But, does it really exist? Looks like a rendered drawing (although it sure

fooled ME!) and no update since November, "PCB design almost ready".

Jon

 

[Jon Elson]

rickman wrote:

It seems the BB has a peripheral mux on all the pins so you can wire the
FPGA to the BB in pretty much any pinout and get to any of the peripherals
(I'm not sure if there are limitations).
There are MANY limitations. Each peripheral device can be mapped to

up to 4 package pads, but not "any pinout". So, many peripherals are not
available because the pads you need are not wired out, or are being used
by something necessary.

Jon

 

[BobH]

On 7/23/2012 12:01 PM, Jon Elson wrote:

BobH wrote:

I don't know the status of it, but this is listed in the "Cape Board
Registry": http://specialcomp.com/beaglebone/BeagleBone_FPGA.html

But, does it really exist? Looks like a rendered drawing (although it sure
fooled ME!) and no update since November, "PCB design almost ready".

I have the same question, that was why I highlighted the possible
vaporousness of it. If it exists, it could be a nice piece to play with.

BobH

 

[BobH]

On 7/23/2012 12:03 PM, Jon Elson wrote:

rickman wrote:
It seems the BB has a peripheral mux on all the pins so you can wire the
FPGA to the BB in pretty much any pinout and get to any of the peripherals
(I'm not sure if there are limitations).

There are MANY limitations. Each peripheral device can be mapped to
up to 4 package pads, but not "any pinout". So, many peripherals are not
available because the pads you need are not wired out, or are being used
by something necessary.

Also, a number of the pins on the device are not brought out to the
expansion connectors, further limiting the choices. I just went through
the exercise of selecting pins for a board I am working on.

BobH

 

[rickman]

On Monday, July 23, 2012 2:47:57 PM UTC-4, pfraser wrote:

rickman wrote:
But I would suggest that you duplicate the pinout of the LCD7
which seems to use a parallel interface and you might be able
to reuse some of the driver code. I'm thinking of doing something
similar. You might even be able to multiplex the interface and
use it for both the FPGA board and the LCD7 display.

Unfortunately the LCD7 seems to use the TI chip's dedicated
16-bit LCD interface. It looks like it probably uses mux mode 0,
so I suspect the GPMC is still available, but they don't seem
to use the GPMC.

Thanks

Pete

Funny, I get more info on the Beagle boards here than I ever have in the Beagle google group. The guy running the thing just says to read the documentation and not many others respond. I have found the BB to be a bit difficult to even find info on other than the chip data sheet.

Rick

 

[pfraser]

BobH wrote:

I have the same question, that was why I highlighted the possible
vaporousness of it. If it exists, it could be a nice piece to play with.

I emailed them, but no reply yet.

 

[pfraser]

rickman wrote:

Funny, I get more info on the Beagle boards here than I ever have in the Beagle google group. The guy running the thing just says to read the documentation and not many others respond. I have found the BB to be a bit difficult to even find info on other than the chip data sheet.

I haven't tried the Beagle group yet.
I feel a bit guilty starting this thread in an FPGA group,
when there isn't much discussion of FPGAs, but at least it
isn't the most off-topic thread I've seen.

Maybe if I insert a bit of an FPGA question:

It looks from the manual that I should be able to
configure the FMC interface of the KC705 to run at
3.3V (through the use of Vadj), and that the Avnet
DVI I/O FMC Module should be fine with that.

Can anybody verify that it should be OK?

Pete

 

Hi Pete,

We are just prototyping a similar board to talk to a AD9361.

Are you progressing with the plan to interface through the GPMC, and if so what are your software resources?

We are currently developing drivers with the intention of releasing a vhdl opencore & gpmc device driver but at this stage we are as vapour as everyone else (which is to say we are a reasonable way from being manufacturable).

David

On Monday, 23 July 2012 06:27:45 UTC+10, pfraser wrote:

I'm playing with the idea of interfacing a BeagleBone

(cheap dual ARM Cortex A8 board) to a Xilinx KC705

Kintex development board. This will give me much more

CPU processing power than a microblaze could.



I thought I could probably do it with a passive interface

because the Kintex can deal with 3.3 Volt I/O.



I'd probably use a Xilinx 105 debug board on the FMC

HPC connector, and hand build an interface board between

the debug board and the BeagleBone.



That would leave the LPC connector free for an Avnet

HDMI input board (I'm playing around with some video

processing / measurement ideas).



I would then develop a Angstrom Linux driver for

the TI GPMC interface to the Kintex.



Anybody see any flaws in this plan? Any advice?

Anybody done some / all of this already, and prepared

to share so that I don't need to re-invent the wheel?



Thanks



Pete

On Monday, 23 July 2012 06:27:45 UTC+10, pfraser wrote:

I'm playing with the idea of interfacing a BeagleBone

(cheap dual ARM Cortex A8 board) to a Xilinx KC705

Kintex development board. This will give me much more

CPU processing power than a microblaze could.



I thought I could probably do it with a passive interface

because the Kintex can deal with 3.3 Volt I/O.



I'd probably use a Xilinx 105 debug board on the FMC

HPC connector, and hand build an interface board between

the debug board and the BeagleBone.



That would leave the LPC connector free for an Avnet

HDMI input board (I'm playing around with some video

processing / measurement ideas).



I would then develop a Angstrom Linux driver for

the TI GPMC interface to the Kintex.



Anybody see any flaws in this plan? Any advice?

Anybody done some / all of this already, and prepared

to share so that I don't need to re-invent the wheel?



Thanks



Pete

\

 

[pfraser]

david.middleton@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Pete,

We are just prototyping a similar board to talk to a AD9361.

Are you progressing with the plan to interface through the GPMC, and if so what are your software resources?

We are currently developing drivers with the intention of releasing a vhdl opencore & gpmc device driver but at this stage we are as vapour as everyone else (which is to say we are a reasonable way from being manufacturable).

I got sidetracked, so haven't had much of a chance to look
at this yet. I'm a hardware guy, so I'd just be making
up the software is I go along. I'd certainly be interested
in the stuff that you're doing when I get back to this.

It looks like the BeagleBone Black is a nice choice,
but there's contention for a couple of GPMC balls, so
the board would need to boot off the SD card (on-board
flash disabled in device tree).

Are you using the black, or the white?

Pete

 

[feverlabs]

On 12/10/2013 11:43 AM, pfraser wrote:

david.middleton@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Pete,

We are just prototyping a similar board to talk to a AD9361.

Are you progressing with the plan to interface through the GPMC, and
if so what are your software resources?

We are currently developing drivers with the intention of releasing a
vhdl opencore & gpmc device driver but at this stage we are as vapour
as everyone else (which is to say we are a reasonable way from being
manufacturable).


I got sidetracked, so haven't had much of a chance to look
at this yet. I'm a hardware guy, so I'd just be making
up the software is I go along. I'd certainly be interested
in the stuff that you're doing when I get back to this.

It looks like the BeagleBone Black is a nice choice,
but there's contention for a couple of GPMC balls, so
the board would need to boot off the SD card (on-board
flash disabled in device tree).

Are you using the black, or the white?

Pete

I just wanted to throw this out there, in case it helps:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1575992013/logi-fpga-development-board-for-raspberry-pi-beagl

I backed one for the BeagleBone, as it intrigues me.

-Jay