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Nexysvideo and Adept


effisio

Question

Hi

I wanted to program my Nexys Video using Adept 2 Software (version 2.16.4) . However, the program could not find any specific board information, so it ends up with  loading default information which only presents me the config and settings tab. The config tab tells me that adept recognizes the connected board correctly as Nexysvideo. What is going wrong here?

Thanks, R.G.

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Hi Bianca

Thank you for the answer. I normally use Vivado for programming. But I was hoping that using Adept would be possible, too, because with the Atlys Board it was sometimes really handy to use it for programming and especially also for reading the current content of  the spi flash. I was not able to manage that with the Vivado tools by now. Is it possible at all?

Best regards, Effisio

 

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I have always read the content of the flash off any of my devices before programming them.  I do this because I am loathe to program over and on top of the flash, while losing something that I had originally purchased.

You can find a Verilog example of the QSPI flash controller I use here.  You'll even find a C++ simulation there that is valid for many (most) QSPI flash devices.

One of the difficult parts of such a project is making sure that you can read from, write to, and in general communicate with the FPGA.  I like to use an internal wishbone interface within the FPGA, and so the first requirement of using any of the routines I suggest is that you can command reads and writes of that wishbone bus.  I abstract accesses to this interface via what I call a devbus.  The purpose of this abstraction was to make certain that programs I built for working with the FPGA would continue to work no matter what the communications layer and protocol was underneath them--whether it be UART, JTAG, DEPP, or even PCIe.

You can find examples of projects where I've done this here (for an Xess XuLA2-LX25), and here (for a Digilent CMod-S6).  I've also done this with a Digilent Basys-3 board (code not posted).  In the XuLA project, the wishbone is commanded via a JTAG interface.  I use a DEPP interface for the CMod.  Today's task has been working to do the same for Digilent's Arty board--I'll be using a UART to command that interface.  While I have never done this with the Nexys Video, I have to believe most SPI flash devices are fairly similar.

Sorry this isn't a point and click solution for you, but it should be something that gets you closer to a solution.

Let me know if you have further questions,

Dan

 

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I often have multiple boards running in a project and find that the Adept Runtime tool is very convenient. Of course you need to be using Windows but I can program my Atlys, Genesys, Genesys2 or Nexys Video easily from the same GUI interface. Only the very latest  version plays with the series 7 FPGA devices.

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@D@n: Thank you very much, that helps me a lot!

@zygot: Does this mean that your Adept installation is able to load board specific information related to the Nexys Video? The corresponding file should then come with the Adept installation (as it e.g. does for the Atlys Board). Is there any newer version than 2.16.4 available?

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The latest version of the adept for windows installer on my Windows 7 PC is digilent.adept.system_v2.161.exe. It recognizes any FPGA device on a Digilent board. For instance I can program my KC705 or Genesys2 using the Program Files (x86)// adept.exe utility. Though it doesn't recognise a board when connected to the KC705 it does recognize the device and dutifully configures it because the KC705 has a nice Digilent JTAG interface on it and the same FPGA as the Genesys2. The date on the installer says that I downloaded  it January of 2016 though my recollection is that I couldn't program series 7 FPGA devices until more recently using the adept.exe utility.... but I don't have anything newer downloaded from Digilent except for the SDK. Evidently, my assumption that I was using the latest version was wrong. I only use the utility to program boards, though with the Atlys, if I have a depp interface in my design it allows for some measure of troubleshooting. As to "board specific information"  it reports an ID, the device, and the name of the board if the board is made by Digilent.

It would be nice if a version of the utility were available for Linux....

So I don't know if I cleared anything up or further muddied the waters...

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zygot: Thank you for your reply. Maybe there was a little missunderstanding. Adept 2 recognizes the Nexys Video and its FPGA and I can use the config tab to configure the FPGA.
That works. But I am missing all the other stuff I used to have with the Atlys Board, simply because Adept has no information about what is on the board Nexys Video besides the FPGA. Especially this means I cannot read or program the spi flash using adept. I suppose now that Digilent simply didn't create  a file with board information for Nexysvideo to be used by Adept.

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