Arty-Z7: Best way to learn/ get started?

[DerBurns]

I've recently been looking into the Arty-Z7, as I think it would be a great board to use for my university senior project (and additional hobby work once done with that).

 

I have yet to purchase the board.... But I can't seem to find any real guides/tutorials on how to get started with this board. Same goes for any in depth documentation on the board itself. I feel like this is almost nonexistent despite being released within the last year or two. The only other board I have any experience with with is the Nexys 3 for one of my classes, and it was pretty straightforward to work with Verilog inside of ISE. As I understand it, the PL side of the Arty is fairly similar (just some modules and a constraint file to go with them). Just look at the master constraint file listed to get pin names, and adjust it appropriately based on the top module.

 

However, I've never really dealt with one of these PS/PL combo boards before. How do I go about the software side of things? How do I get a basic software loop going, or make TX/RX pins for a USART connection to external peripherals, or transmit/share data between the PL/PS via the "interconnect" I have seen mentioned?

 

This is just very different for me. I would love to drop some money on this board, but I really don't want to unless I know that there is a good way to start learning about the board......

[jpeyron]

Hi @DerBurns,

The Arty-Z7 resource center is here. The usb uart is connected to the Zynq processor. The Getting Started with the Vivado IP Integrator goes through using the zynq processor as well as has sdk code that uses the uart.

thank you,

Jon

[DerBurns]

17 minutes ago, jpeyron said:

Hi @DerBurns,

The Arty-Z7 resource center is here. The usb uart is connected to the Zynq processor. The Getting Started with the Vivado IP Integrator goes through using the zynq processor as well as has sdk code that uses the uart.

thank you,

Jon

 

I'll take a look at the IP guide, thanks! However, that guide uses the Zybo. Does the IP integrator/Vivado Suite come with project files for the Arty Z7 as well? I already checked the resource center but it all seemed pretty vague to me, but I'll give it another look.

I guess I didn't clarify. I'm talking about setting up pins for use with GPIO. I meant as in a USART connection between another, non-USB device. In my example, I have a device with an RX/TX serial pinheader which would connect to the pin headers of this board.

I also would like to know which IO pins are processor specific, and which are FPGA specific? And how do I handoff data from the processor to be used by FPGA modules?

 

Sorry for the this stream of questions.... I'm just really interested in the board and don't know how to get my foot in the door.

 

[jpeyron]

Hi @DerBurns,

To clarify, are you talking about having a uart device connected to one of the pmod ports or the arduino styled header? If that is the case then you can use hdl or the zynq processor using the axi uart ip core to communicate. Or are you trying to use the usb uart connector to communicate to another uart device through the usb uart. In this case the usb uart is directly connected to the ps. reference manual in section 2 Zynq APSoC Architecture show that you could the emio to access the uart pis from the ps.  MIO pins can instead route their I/O through the PL, via the Extended-MIO (EMIO) interface. 

thank you,

Jon

[DerBurns]

Thanks for all the help! Now that I actually have the board in my hands this is seeming a little bit easier. Starting to get the hang of Vivado. Using just the FPGA fabric is super easy, it is just like how I did it on ISE for my old Nexys 3.

 

So far the most helpful link has been that guide you linked on the IP integrator. Definitely will help me get started on the PS side of things. I'll continue looking at the documentation and examples (still seems like there is a lack thereof, but I guess the process is similar to other SoC boards).  So far I've just tested to make sure that I can get basic pushbutton functionality, and I can't tell you how excited I am to get working with this board.

 

Thanks, you'll probably see more of me if I ever get stuck

[etexley]

I looked for quite some time for the requisite information, but you really info on the Yocto Xilinx Layer:

https://xilinx-wiki.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/A/pages/18842224/Getting+started+with+Yocto+Xilinx+layer

You will need appropriate defconfig and device tree for U-Boot for Arty Z7.   And you will need Linux Device tree.