Basys 3 XDC clock usage

[White Horse Software]

I'm learning how to generate clocks with XDC files, using the .xdc from the Basys 3 github repository as a starting point.

I'd like to change the clock to a very low frequency of 1 Hz, or once per second, so that a LED blinks on and off once a second.

The portion of the .xdc file that generates the clock looks like this:

## Clock signal
set_property PACKAGE_PIN W5 [get_ports clk]
set_property IOSTANDARD LVCMOS33 [get_ports clk]
create_clock -add -name sys_clk_pin -period 1000000000.00 [get_ports clk]

And the code for blinking the LED looks like this:

module oneclock (
    input clk,
    output led[15:0]
);
    assign led[0] = clk;
endmodule

I can synthesize, etc but the LED appears constantly lit, although dimmer than normal if I'm not mistaken. Is there a minimum to the generated clock? Apologies for the newbie question, any documentation or things to help me learn would be greatly appreciated.

[JColvin]

Hi @White Horse Software,

A couple of things. The first is that you don't actually create a clock within the xdc (despite the naming convention of the "create_clock" constraint); it just formally defines the existing clock on the board so that the tools can properly handle the design. You will need to keep this create_clock as defined in the Basys 3 xdc (available here: https://github.com/Digilent/digilent-xdc/blob/master/Basys-3-Master.xdc).

What you can do though is create a counter and clock divider to update the state of the LED after a set number of clock cycles. How you might do this is explained more here: https://learn.digilentinc.com/Documents/262.

Let me know if you have any questions about this.

Thanks,
JColvin