Arty A7-35: Program flash memory

[jwh20]

I just received my new Arty A7-35 and it didn't take long to create my first design and program the FPGA.  So far so good.  But I cannot figure out how to program the flash so the configuration loads at power-on.  The Hardware Manager seems to have a setting for the memory but it wants a "configuration file" and I'm at a loss on how to create one.  I am not finding any mention of this in the Digilent docs and I've been searching though the Vivado docs without luck.

What am I missing?  Thanks!

[Phil]

I will try to help here.  I have the Arty A7-100; should work for the A7-35.  I am using a version of 2018.3.1 with a patch.  I'm assuming this will be the same for more up-to-date versions.

If you have already added the configuration memory device in the hardware manager and it is asking for a configuration file to program it, you can create a .bin file when the .bit file (bitstream) is created.

Go to:

PROJECT MANAGER->Settings

Then select "-bin_file" and "Apply"

Then re-generate the bitstream.  When finished you should have a .bin file in the [project name].runs->impl_1 folder.  Use this file as your configuration file when you program the memory configuration device.

The MODE jumper (JP1) must be installed for it to auto-boot from flash.