Xilinx UG133 User Manual

MicroBlaze Microcontroller Reference Design User Guide v1.3.1

UG133 v1.3.1 January 7, 2005

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UG133 v1.3.1 January 7, 2005 www.xilinx.com MicroBlaze Microcontroller Ref Des User Guide

MicroBlaze Microcontroller Ref Des User Guide UG133 v1.3.1 January 7, 2005

The following table shows the revision history for this document.

Version Revision

7/22/04 1.0 Initial Xilinx release.

8/27/04 1.1 Edited content; imported new images

11/19/04 1.2 Reconfigured book; added new chapter; incorporated edits

11/30/04 1.3 Reformatted book to consist of chapters for Overview and RefDes1

1/7/05 1.3.1 Made minor non-technical changes only.

UG133 v1.3.1 January 7, 2005 www.xilinx.com MicroBlaze Microcontroller Ref Des User Guide

About This Guide

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Guide Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Additional Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Typographical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Online Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Microcontroller Reference Design Overview

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

MicroBlaze Microcontroller

Reference Design Number 1

Reference Design Building Blocks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Features: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Getting Started. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Downloading the Reference Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Downloading the Design and Launching XPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Updating and Generation Hardware Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Downloading Design Files to the FPGA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Selecting a Software Application to Run When the FPGA is Configured . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Loading the “Calculator_App” Software Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Running the Calculator_App program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Selecting a Software Application to be Loaded with a BOOT Loader

after the FPGA is Configured and the Processor is Running. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Updating and Generation Hardware Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Loading the “microblaze_0_xmdstub” Software Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Loading the “TestApp” Software Application with XMD_STUB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Loading the “Calculator_App” Software Application with XMD_STUB . . . . . . . . . . 11

Additional MicroBlaze and EDK Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

UG133 January 7, 2005 www.xilinx.com MicroBlaze Microcontroller Ref Des User Guide

About This Guide

Introduction

This user guide contains information on how to integrate the stand-alone, prebuilt, MicroBlaze Microcontroller reference design into an FPGA. Although this design is targeted initially for the Xilinx Spartan-3 Starter Kit Board, the design may be modified readily for any Xilinx or third party platform.

This guide is an aid in getting started and learning how to use the Xilinx Embedded Development Kit (EDK) tools. It does this through examples, which show how multiple software images can be run on a defined soft Microcontroller hardware configuration. This guide show how an FPGA with a soft processor can be used the same way an engineer would select an off the shelf microcontroller. This guide will provide examples of a number of different microcontroller configurations from which an engineer can choose. The soft microcontroller features and peripherals in the FPGA may be used without modification, or may be modified and customized using the Xilinx EDK Platform Studio tools. This guide will cover the flow where multiple software images are load on an unmodified hardware configuration.

The MicroBaze Microcontroller is an integrated solution intended for implementation of an embedded controller in FPGA by a user without extensive knowledge of the Xilinx Embedded Development Kit (EDK) and the Xilinx Platform Studio (XPS). The solution offered in this document is a minimal implementation that can be expanded easily to include other peripherals and application software for different usage.

All the necessary documentation, references, HDL code, sample codes, software drivers and application software are included in the tools or provided with this design.

Guide Contents

This manual contains the following sections:

“Microcontroller Reference Design Overview”

“MicroBlaze Microcontroller Reference Design Number 1”

MicroBlaze Microcontroller Ref Des User Guide www.xilinx.com 1

UG133 January 7, 2005

Additional Resources

For additional information, go to http://support.xilinx.com. The following table lists some of the resources available from this website. You can also directly access these resources using the provided URLs.

Resource Description/URL

Tut or ia ls Tutorials covering Xilinx design flows, from design entry to

Answer Browser Database of Xilinx solution records

Application Notes Descriptions of device-specific design techniques and approaches

Data Sheets Device-specific information on Xilinx device characteristics,

verification and debugging

http://support.xilinx.com/support/techsup/tutorials/index.htm

http://support.xilinx.com/xlnx/xil_ans_browser.jsp

http://support.xilinx.com/apps/appsweb.htm

including readback, boundary scan, configuration, length count, and debugging

http://support.xilinx.com/xlnx/xweb/xil_publications_index.jsp

Conventions

Typographical

Problem Solvers Interactive tools that allow you to troubleshoot your design issues

http://support.xilinx.com/support/troubleshoot/psolvers.htm

Tech Tips Latest news, design tips, and patch information for the Xilinx

design environment

http://www.support.xilinx.com/xlnx/xil_tt_home.jsp

This document uses the following conventions. An example illustrates each convention.

The following typographical conventions are used in this document:

Convention Meaning or Use Example

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Courier font

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program files that the system displays

Literal commands that you enter in a syntactical statement

speed grade: - 100

ngdbuild design_name

Commands that you select

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Xilinx UG133 User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

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