Interfacing a circuit in an FPGA to a PC

[Dr. Beau Webber]

If you have an interest in exchanging data between circuitry in an FPGA and a PC, I have written a simple GUI that demonstrates transfers at full USB2 rates to and from an FPGA interfaced with an FTDI FT2232H USB2 interface chip (i.e. the FTDI Morph-IC-II).

There is a free (binary only) download :
http://www.lab-tools.com/instrumentation/download/FPGA_PC_Release_TF.zip ,
or source code is available for both personal and commercial uses : i.e.
(Altera Quartus II v11.1sp2 archive) plus script source plus GUI binary or source.

There is a help page at :
http://www.lab-tools.com/instrumentation/soft-firm-hard-ware/FPGA_interface_to_PC/help.html
and a YouTube video putting this code through its paces at :
http://youtu.be/EqLJBdtOvYY

These demonstrate a fast way of getting PC access to firmware circuitry in a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA).
Pre-written VHDL firmware and array-based software facilitate interfacing a PC to the FPGA over the USB, and gives transparent access to multiple banks of sub-modules and instrument functions in the FPGA at full USB2 rates of 480 Mbit/s (60 MBytes/s).

Each sub-module has an independent block of up to 256 USB interface registers, to configure the sub-instrument and for bi-directional data transfer. This Lab-Tools code forms the skeleton into which the sub-modules / instruments may be slotted, in a consistent manner.

 

On Friday, 11 May 2012 09:49:05 UTC+1, Dr. Beau Webber wrote:

If you have an interest in exchanging data between circuitry in an FPGA and a PC, I have written a simple GUI that demonstrates transfers at full USB2 rates to and from an FPGA interfaced with an FTDI FT2232H USB2 interface chip (i.e. the FTDI Morph-IC-II).

There is a free (binary only) download :
http://www.lab-tools.com/instrumentation/download/FPGA_PC_Release_TF.zip ,
or source code is available for both personal and commercial uses : i.e.
(Altera Quartus II v11.1sp2 archive) plus script source plus GUI binary or source.
I have slightly updated the code to Version 0.95 - it should now have some slight functionality even if you do not have a Morph-IC-II FPGA module plugged in.

Note you will first need to download and install the APLX Support Library from MicroApl : http://www.microapl.co.uk/apl/player/index.html . If you run Norton, it will probably complain that the .exe file is infected - the file is not infected, but it is a powerful piece of code, as it has to access a number of .dlls to program and interface to the FPGA.

 

[Dr. Beau Webber]

On Friday, 11 May 2012 09:49:05 UTC+1, Dr. Beau Webber wrote:
If you have an interest in exchanging data between circuitry in an FPGA and a PC, I have written a simple GUI that demonstrates transfers at full USB2 rates to and from an FPGA .....
There is a free (binary only) download :
http://www.lab-tools.com/instrumentation/download/FPGA_PC_Release_TF..zip
If you run Norton, it will probably complain .....

Now : "The Symantec Insight Dispute team has reviewed your recent submission to the Insight Dispute Submission form Webpage form "FPGA_interface_demo_2012-05-13_TF." In light of further investigation and analysis Symantec is happy to remove this detection from within its products."