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FPGA WorkshopJanuary 2011

Xilinx SDK Tutorial

Billy Huang / Graham Naylor

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Software Development Kit (SDK)

• Overview

– Slides introducing the SDK.

– Creating an SDK project, compiling and running.

– Viewing output on HyperTerminal.

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SDK

• What is the SDK?– The Sofware Development Kit (SDK) is a program which allows C/C++

programming for the Microblaze.

• The SDK uses the GNU C Compiler. This program allows you to easilycompile a program and make it run on the processor.

• The easiest compiler to use is the compiled binary form, i.e. not tocompile your own compiler! The binary form will run on any x86 (mostIntel and AMD 32-bit) system. SDK includes this compiler. Later youwill use a compiler outside of the Microblaze environment.

• Code sources:

[1] http://git.monstr.eu/git/gitweb.cgi

[2] http://git.xilinx.com/

[3] http://gcc.gnu.org/git/?p=gcc.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/microblaze

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Create a Xilinx C Project

1. Create a “Xilinx C Project”. This will give you access to a numberof pre-written example C applications which will run on theMicroblaze.

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Create a Hello World application

1. Select the “Hello World” application,And then “Next”.

2. Select “Finish”.

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Connect the UART

1. Select the “Hello World”application,And then “Next”.

• UART and Serial console are used to mean the same thing.

2. Select “standalone” on the left side. Then changethe stdin/stdout to xps_uart16550.This connects the software to the UART.

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• We make some minor program modifications in platform.c to getthe serial console working. Whilst choosing a higher baud rate of115200 bps.

• SCROLL DOWN below #define etc. And change 9600 to 115200.Also make the changes in the red box.

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• Select the program FPGA button

• Choose the hello_world.elf

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Open HyperTerminal (or similar)

• Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Communications -> HyperTerminal

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Run on Hardware

• Launch the program on the FPGA board. Behind the scenes this connects usingXMD and then runs the “dow program.elf” followed by “run”.

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Hello World

• You should see “Hello World” displayed on the terminal.

• If you cannot see any output on the UART try to close theterminal program and re-open it, then reprogram the FPGA.

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Go create!

• Now you can create your own programs...

• In fact the SDK can be completely avoided. In thatit is possible to compile and test programs using the(perhaps familiar) command line compiler.

• This will be demonstrated in another set of slideswhen compiling a program called U-Boot .