Using Xilinx SDK directly with Zybo Z7

[akhilahmed]

Hi,

I am new to the Zybo Z7 platform. I watched a video from Xilinx on using Xilinx SDK to run a simple "Hello World" program on the on-board processor. Following the steps shown in the video would however not work, as SDK doesn't recognize the Zybo Z7 board (Zybo-Z7-20). I followed the steps shown in the tutorial here and was able to get the "Hello World" displayed on the SDK terminal. Here are my questions:

1. Do we always have to "Export Hardware" and launch SDK from Vivado? In other words, can we directly launch SDK, create a new application project and somehow select the right hardware platform for the Zybo Z7 board? Are there any files we could copy to make SDK understand the Zybo Z7 board?
2. After writing the C code that is to be executed on the PS, the tutorial asks us to program the FPGA first and then run the application code. However, the Xilinx video doesn't involve the programming FPGA step. Can someone please explain why it is required in one case and not required in the other?

Thanks in advance.

[HelplessGuy]

1) if you want to use your HDL and bitstream then yes. And you can promise me, that you want this, because using the processing unit without any hardware won't make sense and will work.

you need the board files that your hardware and software knows the declaration of all kind of pins and where they are connected

2) the is a button on top of SDK. Something like flash fpga. the other possibillity is to do this with open hardware manager

 

greetings,

[jpeyron]

Hi @akhilahmed,

Digilent does not have pre-built hardware platforms for our boards for SDK. We have board files for our boards used in Vivado. Xilinx provides a hardware platform for their boards in sdk. My understanding is that you need to program the FPGA either way.   You will need to import the hardware platform from vivado. You do not need to launch SDK from vivado but it is easier. 

thank you,

Jon 

[akhilahmed]

Thank you @HelplessGuy and @jpeyron