your opinion about Avnet (Silica) VirtexII Pro evaluation b

[Mancini Stephane]

Hi,
I would like to know if anybody here has tested the avnet VirtexII Pro
evaluation board with XC2VP7 or XC2VP20 chip (board ref : ADS-XLX-V2PRO-DEVP7-5
and ADS-XLX-V2PRO-DEVP20-5)
http://www.silica.com/eval_kits/ads-20030515.html


I would like to know if :
- it's possible to install an OS like linux or uclinux on this board ?
What about the linux port from http://penguinppc.org/dev/kernel.shtml
What about ucOSII (http://www.micrium.com)

- Is there any bottleneck to access the SRAM from the chip through the PCI bridge ?

By the way has anybody tried to put it in a PC and communicate with it?
The card seems to be delivered with a windows interface. What's this ?
How to use it with a PC running linux ?


Is it possible to programm the FPGA trough PCI (once in a PC) or is it mandatory to use
the standard way ?

- is there a way to connect it a display - LCD or video ?


More generally, about VirtexII Pro, it seems that all the coreconnect bus
stuff has to be synthesized using FPGA ressources ? At the opposite, it
seems the Excalibur Arm solution proposes a basic microsystem (a CPU with
some peripherals) which preserves FPGA ressources.
Am I right ?
What's the complexity of the coreconnect bus ? How many room is left
in XC2VP7 or XC2VP20 chips for, say, a single PLB bus, a SDRAM/RAM
controller, UART, timer and interface to
PCI (to the PC or PMC-daughter cards)?
Do I have to use two PLB bus if I use the XC2VP20 chip (with 2 PowerPC) ?
I understand that it doesn't consume multipliers but what about
combinatorial/sequencing logic for the bus stuff ?


Thanks a lot for your future responses

Stéphane

 

[Heng Tan]

Hi,there
I received my avnet VirtexII Pro development kit(XC2VP7) this month. I
know it is somehow different from the evaluation board(stronger in
general). But I guess I can try to give some premitive views. And
right now, since I am still a newbie on this board, the information I
gave may not be accurate.

1.In the flash memory of the development board, there already stores a
linux core there, which will run on the spartan(the pci bridge) when
power up. you can use a serial cable to connect with a host pc and use
a hypertermianl program to watch. The flash also installed some other
applications which will help you monitor the board like avmon. I can't
provide further details right now since my work are usually done in
windows

2.I already installed the board into a pci slot and used it. So the
answer to the second question is yes.( although it took me more than a
week to contact avnet engieer and figure out some tedious technique
detail. The documment coming with the board is not that helpful.)
There is a tool called PCIutility which can help you to debug the
board and download the file. However all these work are finished under
the 3rd party driver (jungo or to say windriver). So as far as I know,
probably only on windows.

3.I havn't test the memory speed yet. So I can't tell whether there is
a bottleneck yet.( you need to write your own project both hd and sw
to contol all types of the memory)

4. with the pciutility I mentioned above, yes you can program the FPGA
through PCI.

5. you can connect it to a host pc not simply a monitor.

Hope it is helpful to you.

P.S. Do you know whether it is possible to feed input to the FPGA on
board from a PC and read output to the PC?? If so, how?? I need to
implement an algorithm and now stuck here. I mean write your own API
instead of using some tools.

"Mancini Stephane" <nospam@nospam.nospam> wrote in message news:<pan.2003.09.26.07.58.52.284871@nospam.nospam>...

Hi,
I would like to know if anybody here has tested the avnet VirtexII Pro
evaluation board with XC2VP7 or XC2VP20 chip (board ref : ADS-XLX-V2PRO-DEVP7-5
and ADS-XLX-V2PRO-DEVP20-5)
http://www.silica.com/eval_kits/ads-20030515.html


I would like to know if :
- it's possible to install an OS like linux or uclinux on this board ?
What about the linux port from http://penguinppc.org/dev/kernel.shtml
What about ucOSII (http://www.micrium.com)

- Is there any bottleneck to access the SRAM from the chip through the PCI bridge ?

By the way has anybody tried to put it in a PC and communicate with it?
The card seems to be delivered with a windows interface. What's this ?
How to use it with a PC running linux ?


Is it possible to programm the FPGA trough PCI (once in a PC) or is it mandatory to use
the standard way ?

- is there a way to connect it a display - LCD or video ?


More generally, about VirtexII Pro, it seems that all the coreconnect bus
stuff has to be synthesized using FPGA ressources ? At the opposite, it
seems the Excalibur Arm solution proposes a basic microsystem (a CPU with
some peripherals) which preserves FPGA ressources.
Am I right ?
What's the complexity of the coreconnect bus ? How many room is left
in XC2VP7 or XC2VP20 chips for, say, a single PLB bus, a SDRAM/RAM
controller, UART, timer and interface to
PCI (to the PC or PMC-daughter cards)?
Do I have to use two PLB bus if I use the XC2VP20 chip (with 2 PowerPC) ?
I understand that it doesn't consume multipliers but what about
combinatorial/sequencing logic for the bus stuff ?


Thanks a lot for your future responses

Stéphane

 

[Mancini Stephane]

Thanks a lot for your responses but I still don't understand some points.
For example, what do you mean whan you say there's a linux core running on
the spartan ? Doas it mean that there a soft CPU wich runs linux ?

About you P.S, it's exactly what we want to do.

Could you also tell me if the PCI bus is 32 or 64 bits ?
Do I have to buy a PC with a 64 bit PCI slot ?

Regards,

Stephane





On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 15:22:12 -0700, Heng Tan wrote:

Hi,there
I received my avnet VirtexII Pro development kit(XC2VP7) this month. I
know it is somehow different from the evaluation board(stronger in
general). But I guess I can try to give some premitive views. And
right now, since I am still a newbie on this board, the information I
gave may not be accurate.

1.In the flash memory of the development board, there already stores a
linux core there, which will run on the spartan(the pci bridge) when
power up. you can use a serial cable to connect with a host pc and use
a hypertermianl program to watch. The flash also installed some other
applications which will help you monitor the board like avmon. I can't
provide further details right now since my work are usually done in
windows

2.I already installed the board into a pci slot and used it. So the
answer to the second question is yes.( although it took me more than a
week to contact avnet engieer and figure out some tedious technique
detail. The documment coming with the board is not that helpful.)
There is a tool called PCIutility which can help you to debug the
board and download the file. However all these work are finished under
the 3rd party driver (jungo or to say windriver). So as far as I know,
probably only on windows.

3.I havn't test the memory speed yet. So I can't tell whether there is
a bottleneck yet.( you need to write your own project both hd and sw
to contol all types of the memory)

4. with the pciutility I mentioned above, yes you can program the FPGA
through PCI.

5. you can connect it to a host pc not simply a monitor.

Hope it is helpful to you.

P.S. Do you know whether it is possible to feed input to the FPGA on
board from a PC and read output to the PC?? If so, how?? I need to
implement an algorithm and now stuck here. I mean write your own API
instead of using some tools.

 

[Heng Tan]

yes, i think so. I am not familiar with spartan. but I wonder there
should be some IP core in it like vertex 2 pro so that you can use
softcore too. This is not a real strong version. I believe it is just
a the basic core of linux which will be no more than hundreds of k(
maybe even less). Since I do not use linux, I never tried to spend too
much time to study this. But as far as I can understand, it is not
even as strong as avmon( the software I had mentioned). I don't think
you can monitor the board on it or use it to do any real job unless
you rebuild it. Basically, it is just a demo.
for the 2nd question, no you don't need to. It support both pci and
pci-x, which means 32-bit is just fine. But you may meet some voltage
problem as i had met. But we can discuss that later when you get the
board and unluckily meet that, too
And for my question, do you have any clue how to establish that in
general?? please give me some hints. It really bothers me a lot now.

And by the way, I stupidly used one of my real email address last
time. and I received lot of idiot messages. any solutions to that.
what the hell!!!!!!!!:-(

"Mancini Stephane" <nospam@nospam.nospam> wrote in message news:<pan.2003.10.03.13.20.33.631867@nospam.nospam>...

Thanks a lot for your responses but I still don't understand some points.
For example, what do you mean whan you say there's a linux core running on
the spartan ? Doas it mean that there a soft CPU wich runs linux ?

About you P.S, it's exactly what we want to do.

Could you also tell me if the PCI bus is 32 or 64 bits ?
Do I have to buy a PC with a 64 bit PCI slot ?

Regards,

Stephane





On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 15:22:12 -0700, Heng Tan wrote:

Hi,there
I received my avnet VirtexII Pro development kit(XC2VP7) this month. I
know it is somehow different from the evaluation board(stronger in
general). But I guess I can try to give some premitive views. And
right now, since I am still a newbie on this board, the information I
gave may not be accurate.

1.In the flash memory of the development board, there already stores a
linux core there, which will run on the spartan(the pci bridge) when
power up. you can use a serial cable to connect with a host pc and use
a hypertermianl program to watch. The flash also installed some other
applications which will help you monitor the board like avmon. I can't
provide further details right now since my work are usually done in
windows

2.I already installed the board into a pci slot and used it. So the
answer to the second question is yes.( although it took me more than a
week to contact avnet engieer and figure out some tedious technique
detail. The documment coming with the board is not that helpful.)
There is a tool called PCIutility which can help you to debug the
board and download the file. However all these work are finished under
the 3rd party driver (jungo or to say windriver). So as far as I know,
probably only on windows.

3.I havn't test the memory speed yet. So I can't tell whether there is
a bottleneck yet.( you need to write your own project both hd and sw
to contol all types of the memory)

4. with the pciutility I mentioned above, yes you can program the FPGA
through PCI.

5. you can connect it to a host pc not simply a monitor.

Hope it is helpful to you.

P.S. Do you know whether it is possible to feed input to the FPGA on
board from a PC and read output to the PC?? If so, how?? I need to
implement an algorithm and now stuck here. I mean write your own API
instead of using some tools.