Arty Board questions

[JColvin]

A customer on our website asked the following questions:

i want to have some details regrading Arty Board : 
1) do you have ip core or code example for DDR handeling?
2) can i program this board using labview?
3) is it possible to add some high speed external adc and dac (about 100Mhz clock rate)? 
4) do you have an ip core to serial communication using Ethernet or usb ?
regards

The response is below.

[JColvin]

Hello,

I will ask some of our applications engineers for further input, but here are some initial responses.

1. We generally use Xilinx's MIG to configure the DDR memory. We have a MicroBlaze example that uses it in the Arty Resource Center here.
2. Unfortunately, you are not able to target this board with LabVIEW at this time, although I think that would be super cool to do so.
3. You certainly can add some high speed DAC's and ADC's. You may want to look into these two threads on our Forum for some more information on what you may need to do to get the high speed signaling working nicely.
4. We do have a demo for the Arty that sends out some information over the USB/UART bridge to your computer available in the Arty Resource Center here.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Thanks,
JColvin

[D@n]

DDR3 handling, apart from Xilinx's Memory Interface Generator, is hard.  I've been working on it for a month or so, and I'm still not there.  I've got the logic in place, but my final connections to the hardware are ... just not there yet.  If you want to get up and running, I'd recommend the MIG for now.

Can LabView speak to a UART port?  If so, you might be able to (re)program the board from labview.  I currently have a design running that allows communication to and from the board and its peripherals (minus the DDR3 and the network port) via the USB port.  You could use this design to load another design into the flash, and then configure the board to start from that new design.  Sadly, all my interface code showing how this is done is written in C++--I'm not sure how you might interface it to LabView.  Still, it's open, and you can read and study it, and even write me with questions!

All of my work is using serial communications over the USB port.  My design also includes an attachment for an external USB controlled serial port (or two, since it includes a connection for GPS as well ...)  You may find that valuable.

Of course, I'd recommend you probably want to start with Digilent's demo projects first--they're a little ... less ambitious. 

Dan