pmod wifi and basys 3 board

[netanel_shor]

Hello,

I'm a student and currently working on my final project including Basys 3 board and wifi pmod.

I'm trying to get started working with the module to understand how it works. This is my first project working with Pmods.

I've been using the Getting Started with Digilent Pmod IPs tutorials. I added the newest Vivado library including the PmodWifi IP and I bulit a block design with the MicroBlaze and other GPIO IPs.

I followed the instructions of the tutorials and got to the part of validating the design, there I got a warning saying few of the wifi pmod pin are not connected.

I've got a few other warnings and errors so I really don't understand what went wrong.

If anyone know what the issue is and can help me, that would be awesome!

Also I'm looking for an example project for wifi pmod using Microblaze to learn from. 

I'm attaching some screenshots of my project.

 

thanks,

Netanel.

[artvvb]

Welcome to the Forums!

The critical warnings about not being able to find the Pmod interface are likely to be causing the issue. The vivado-library folder contains two main subfolders, "ip" and "if". The Pmod IP is contained in the former, while the itnerface is contained in the latter. Make sure that you picked the root "vivado-library" folder when adding the IP repository to your project (first image, below).

When the IP's Pmod interface is successfully connected to the board interface, you should see the connection show up in the board tab and in the block diagram (second image, below).

Unrelated to your question, but take care to make sure that the block memory that Microblaze is connected to is big enough to fit you application. The drivers we provide are quite large - minimum 385 KB as noted by the Pmod IP guide's compatibility table. Unfortunately this won't fit in the Basys 3's BRAM without some work to reduce their size, or to find some other solution.

-Arthur

 

 

 

 

 

[netanel_shor]

16 hours ago, artvvb said:

Make sure that you picked the root "vivado-library" folder when adding the IP repository to your project

Thank you very much Arthur! that solved the problem.

 

16 hours ago, artvvb said:

Unrelated to your question, but take care to make sure that the block memory that Microblaze is connected to is big enough to fit you application. The drivers we provide are quite large - minimum 385 KB as noted by the Pmod IP guide's compatibility table. Unfortunately this won't fit in the Basys 3's BRAM without some work to reduce their size, or to find some other solution.

And what you said about the memory.. I understood from another qustion that someone asked in this forum that I need an addition PmodSD only if I'm trying to make an HTTPServer project. In my case the board is only a client and the server is on another computer and the board is just sending data through the PmodWIFI.

Do I still need the extra memory for that?

thanks,

Netanel.

[artvvb]

The Pmod SD comment is correct, it is normally used to store webpage info.

I believe that the maximum Microblaze local memory size is 64 KB. Since the Basys 3 doesn't have additional RAM outside of the FPGA, the entire program needs to be able to fit in block RAM.

The 385 KB specified is the size of the program that SDK compiles, without any modifications to the example code or drivers.

I'm not certain how big your application will end up being, but you will be able to find out by looking at the compiled ELF's size in the application project's Debug folder. You may need to manually remove some files to make the application smaller, or you may be able to set some linker settings for the compiler to optimize it as much as possible.

Thanks,

Arthur