How does the Zynq system works?

[endluri.ram]

Hi,

 

I am currently using Zybo board. I have followed the " Embedded Linux® Hands-on Tutorial for the ZYBO™ " tutorial. My question is how does the Zynq system works? Is it similar to Microblaze soft processor or is it just FPGA? I have done the same work in the tutorial using Microblaze processor and XIlinx ISE. I find in the specs that  Zynq hosts 2 ARM cortex processors, I want to know when we run above the above tutorial are we using any soft processor or  if we are using the ARM Cortex processor? My point is if any soft processor is involved we can eliminate it and use the ARM processors so that we can achieve more speed.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

 

[sbobrowicz]

That tutorial uses both of the "Hard" ARM processors in the ZYNQ chip. Using the Zynq ARM core is very similar to using a Microblaze core, just instead of adding a Microblaze IP block to your design, you add a "7 Series Processing System" block. Using a microblaze core in a Zynq part is not a very common application, and we do not have any Zynq demos that do that.  

 

There is a brief overview of the ZYNQ architecture in the second section of the ZYBO reference manual, available here: http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,1198&Prod=ZYBO.