SPI Flash on Avnet Spartan 3E Eval Kit

Hi,

You can use picoblaze to program the SPI flash.

Try this one :

in PicoBlaze SPI Flash Programmer

It works for Spartan-3E Starter kit, but I don't know whether it works for your board.

-kunil

I was looking for a quick solution. Since I don't have the same board as that app note and I have never worked with the picoblaze, this looks like a steep learning curve.

I have been trying the Xilinx xspi_usb utility, but it has problems with the device id. If I tell it not to check the device id it fails on the bulk erase.

If I use imPACT, Direct SPI Configuration, it also fails on device validation.

Xilinx has been working on this problem for several days now, and they still don't have an answer for me.

I could buy a module for the Advin programmer we have, but this seems a little excessive for programming one chip, one time.

Is there a way to generate a HEX file that is compatible with the Avnet utility using iMPACT 8.2.03i?

I spent a couple hours last weekend on my home computer, trying to get ISE 7.1 to work, but Corgen wouldn't work so I couldn't get my design to the point where I could follow the procedure in the Avnet documentation.

The reason for purchasing the Avnet board is that it was much cheaper then doing my own board and I thought it would be much quicker. Usually we do our own boards and use the XC18V02 PROMS. What I need is a board with the Cypress USB Microcontroller and an FPGA.

Looks like I have to spend the weekend building a programmer for the ST

25P40PV. Alternatively tell my boss I wasted the last month, fire up Mentor Graphics and do my own board.

Bill

While playing around with the Avnet utility that came with the Evaluation Kit, I discovered that doing a bulk erase of the SPI Flash, makes it possible to write to it.

It would have been nice if Avnet had mentioned this in their documentation, for guys like me who are don't always think of the obvious.

Xilinx also needs to fix ISE/iMPACT 8.2, so that it can generate HEX file for this PROM. For now you need to use ISE/iMPACT 7.1 to generate these files. With a few bug fixes in ISE/iMPACT 8.2 and the xspi_usb program, you could use one of them for programming the SPI Flash.

Xilinx support tried their best to help me. When opening a Web Case at Xilinx I choose to interact by email. This resulted in trying one thing per day. Interaction by phone would have had a faster turn around time, but I don't know if that would have helped since I found the problem myself eventually.

Avnet support ignored me.

I might use the Avnet Spartan 3E Evaluation Kit again, because it is cheap and I now know how to make it work. Adding a QuickUSB PROM from Bitwise Systems, does increase the cost a little. QuickUSB is needed because the Cypress firmware and Windows device driver is useless. I also have an Opal Kelly board on order. If that works well I might use those for future projects instead.

Bill

hello i had the same troubles (but with ISE 8.1). i found i can generate the hex files in command line : promgen -w -p hex -c FF -o fichier.hex -u 0 fichier.bit -b

let me know if it works for you

( to bad that AVNET doesnt have o correct support ! we could gain a lot of time )

Thanks for the information, but I can't really try your suggestion now. I got things working by having someone else generate the Hex file for me in ISE 7.1. Now the board is being used for its intended application and I don't want to mess with it. Since then I have been working on the software that runs on Windows which communicates with Avnet board. If and when I do another FPGA project I might use an Opal Kelly board instead. I have one at home so I might be playing with it soon.

Photos of my project with the Avnet board can be found at:

Bill