Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) Primer
Vivado and Vitis are applications that are used to develop projects to run on our Basys 3 FPGA Development Board. Today’s installation process will also include the installation of Digilent Board Support Files that directly support the Basys 3 FPGA Development Board. Vivado is used to create FPGA hardware designs. Vitis, which is part of the Vivado Design Suite, is used to create both FPGA hardware and FPGA software. We will utilize both Vivado and Vitis in this week’s upcoming lecture series.
The Basys 3 is loaded with 16 LEDs, 16 slide switches, and 5 momentary pushbuttons. Today, with a little help from Vivado, we will use Verilog to generate some projects that logically utilize the Basys 3 LEDs, buttons, and switches. Along the way we will examine the basic elements that make up a Verilog program.
Simulation is a way to determine how well your Verilog design responds to external signals. Simulation can also be used as a debugging tool. Today’s lecture will describe how to enable a Vivado simulation module, or test-bench, and produce simulated signals to apply to our target Verilog design.
The Basys 3 FPGA Development Board is equipped with a quad of seven-segment display modules. The first order of business is to use Vivado resources to craft some Verilog seven-segment driver code. Once our seven-segment driver is verified, we will use Vivado and Verilog to produce a project that will combine the forces of the Basys 3’s LEDs, buttons, and switches with the seven-segment display modules.
In this final lecture of the series, Vitis takes center stage. The FPGA project we will craft today uses a processor that will be programmed to control buttons and LEDs on our Basys 3 FPGA Development Board. Our project development will begin with Vivado. The Vivado-generated portion of the project will then be exported to Vitis, which will generate a bare-metal software module that will ultimately read the status of the buttons and drive the LEDs.
Fred Eady is the owner of EDTP Electronics Inc. and is the principal engineer at the Georgia branch of Ongoing Systems LLC. EDTP Electronics was established in 1988. In the meantime, Fred has written thousands of magazine articles. He has written for all of the major electronic magazines, including Radio Electronics, Electronics Now, Nuts and Volts, Servo, MicroComputer Journal, and Circuit Cellar. Fred has even done a few short feature articles for Design News. To date, he has authored four books and contributed to a fifth. He currently works as a PIC microcontroller consultant and is a Microchip Authorized Design Partner. Fred’s expertise also extends into the ARM community where he is a hardware and firmware design consultant. His customers include aerospace companies, machine shops, specialty startup companies, medical machine manufacturers, coin-operated device businesses, and various other research and development companies. He has a very close working relationship with Microchip Technology, the manufacturer of PIC microcontrollers, and has taught multiple Ethernet and WiFi classes at Microchip's annual Masters Conference.