your opinion about Avnet (Silica) VirtexII Pro evaluation board

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)

formatting link

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

formatting link
What about ucOSII
formatting link

- 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

Reply to
Mancini Stephane
Loading thread data ...

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)

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

  2. 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.

ADS-XLX-V2PRO-DEVP7-5

bridge ?

mandatory to use

Reply to
Heng Tan

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

Reply to
Mancini Stephane

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.