System ACE woes

I'm trying to use the System ACE CF feature of the nice Xilinx ML401 board, but 
mysteriously, my .ace files doesn't work.  Instead it results in the shiny red 
"Err" LED.

I have a very simple "blink LED" style design that works fine when programmed 
over JTAG. Every configuration option has been left at their default value 
(except the start up clock where I tried both JTAG and CCLK). Impact happily 
generated my .ace file which was roughly the same size as the 
"system_my_ace.ace" that it overwrote, but when that entry is chosen from the 
ML401's bootloader, it fails loading.

I haven't been able to find much documentation; with some digging I found the 
DS080 "System ACE CompactFlash Solution", but it didn't cast light on this problem.

To add insult to injury, I reformatted the CF under Windows and unzipped the 
SystemACE_CF.zip recovery image and now nothing from the CF works, not even the 
bootloader. (This is with the Xilinx supplied CF card).

Thanks,
Tommy

Tommy Thorn schrieb:

> I'm trying to use the System ACE CF feature of the nice Xilinx ML401 board, but
> mysteriously, my .ace files doesn't work.  Instead it results in the shiny red
> "Err" LED.
>
> I have a very simple "blink LED" style design that works fine when programmed
> over JTAG. Every configuration option has been left at their default value
> (except the start up clock where I tried both JTAG and CCLK). Impact happily
> generated my .ace file which was roughly the same size as the
> "system_my_ace.ace" that it overwrote, but when that entry is chosen from the
> ML401's bootloader, it fails loading.
>
> I haven't been able to find much documentation; with some digging I found the
> DS080 "System ACE CompactFlash Solution", but it didn't cast light on this problem.
>
> To add insult to injury, I reformatted the CF under Windows and unzipped the
> SystemACE_CF.zip recovery image and now nothing from the CF works, not even the
> bootloader. (This is with the Xilinx supplied CF card).
>
> Thanks,
> Tommy

the first partition must be FAT16, windows selects FAT32 as default
try reformatting with FAT16 (select FAT in format options)

Antti

Antti wrote:
> the first partition must be FAT16, windows selects FAT32 as default
> try reformatting with FAT16 (select FAT in format options)

Thanks Antti, I should have known better.

In my defense, "FAT" is the only option presented to me, but I should
obviously format it in Linux.

Any help with the original problem?

Thanks,
Tommy

Tommy Thorn wrote:
> Antti wrote:
> 
>>the first partition must be FAT16, windows selects FAT32 as default
>>try reformatting with FAT16 (select FAT in format options)
> 
> 
> Thanks Antti, I should have known better.
> 
> In my defense, "FAT" is the only option presented to me, but I should
> obviously format it in Linux.
> 
> Any help with the original problem?
> 

In the majority of cases, the issue is improper formatting of the CF. So 
did you try again after reformatting? (Use Linux or mkdosfs to format).

/Siva

Siva Velusamy wrote:
> In the majority of cases, the issue is improper formatting of the CF. So
> did you try again after reformatting? (Use Linux or mkdosfs to format).

Yes indeed. After a mkdosfs -F16 under Linux and a fresh copy of the
reference CF, the demos worked again.  Unfortunately, the original
problem remains: I can't seem to create .ace files myself, ie. I
followed what seemed to be straight forward steps to transform my
design to an .ace file, but after copying it to the CF card,
overwriting one of the demos, the .ace file doesn't load (instead
lights up the Err LED).

Thanks,
Tommy

Tommy Thorn wrote:
> Siva Velusamy wrote:
> 
>>In the majority of cases, the issue is improper formatting of the CF. So
>>did you try again after reformatting? (Use Linux or mkdosfs to format).
> 
> 
> Yes indeed. After a mkdosfs -F16 under Linux and a fresh copy of the
> reference CF, the demos worked again.  Unfortunately, the original
> problem remains: I can't seem to create .ace files myself, ie. I
> followed what seemed to be straight forward steps to transform my
> design to an .ace file, but after copying it to the CF card,
> overwriting one of the demos, the .ace file doesn't load (instead
> lights up the Err LED).
> 

You might want to try using genace.tcl available in EDK. Use a clean CF 
card, generate the ACE file using genace and copy it to the CF.

/Siva

Tommy Thorn wrote:
> Siva Velusamy wrote:
>> In the majority of cases, the issue is improper formatting of the CF. So
>> did you try again after reformatting? (Use Linux or mkdosfs to format).
> 
> Yes indeed. After a mkdosfs -F16 under Linux and a fresh copy of the
> reference CF, the demos worked again.  Unfortunately, the original
> problem remains: I can't seem to create .ace files myself, ie. I
> followed what seemed to be straight forward steps to transform my
> design to an .ace file, but after copying it to the CF card,
> overwriting one of the demos, the .ace file doesn't load (instead
> lights up the Err LED).
> 
> Thanks,
> Tommy
> 

The most likely problem that you are is that you are not setting up the
chain correctly.  If you have only the 4VLX25 in the chain with a bit
file attached to it, this is wrong.  You need to describe the chain as
seen from the System ACE part in iMPACT correctly or the ACE file won't
work as it has no information as to what device it is supposed to be
downloaded into.

ML401
-----
   Device #0 XCF32P
   Device #1 XC4VLX25     <- Assign bit file here
   Device #2 XC95144LX

And make sure that you are using 8.1i-SP3 or above as there were some
issues with V-4 support in earlier versions.

This was covered in a recent thread
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.arch.fpga/browse_frm/thread/b734e6591d700376/e80ce592bf58ea4c?lnk=gst&rnum=3#e80ce592bf58ea4c

Ed McGettigan
--
Xilinx Inc.

Ed McGettigan wrote:
> The most likely problem that you are is that you are not setting up the
> chain correctly.  If you have only the 4VLX25 in the chain with a bit
> file attached to it, this is wrong.  You need to describe the chain as
> seen from the System ACE part in iMPACT correctly or the ACE file won't
> work as it has no information as to what device it is supposed to be
> downloaded into.
>
> ML401
> -----
>    Device #0 XCF32P
>    Device #1 XC4VLX25     <- Assign bit file here
>    Device #2 XC95144LX
>
> And make sure that you are using 8.1i-SP3 or above as there were some
> issues with V-4 support in earlier versions.
>
> This was covered in a recent thread
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.arch.fpga/browse_frm/thread/b734e6591d700376/e80ce592bf58ea4c?lnk=gst&rnum=3#e80ce592bf58ea4c

Thanks Ed, right you are indeed. Next to the icon depicturing the
System ACE chip I only had a vc4vlx25 icon.

I'm so close, but ... do I really need the configuration for the other
devices in the chain? I just want to bypass them, but if I right-click
"Add Xilinx Device", then it seems I have to specify the configuration
for it. In a vain attempt, I tried to read back the configuration of
the xcf32p and xc95144xl, but for the xcf32p it never made it past 0%.
I read the thread above, but it just say "add the missing devices".

Clearly I'm missing something here.

(BTW I'm using the most current WebPACK release 8.2.01i and the ML401).

Thanks,
Tommy

Tommy Thorn wrote:
> Ed McGettigan wrote:
> > The most likely problem that you are is that you are not setting up the
> > chain correctly.  If you have only the 4VLX25 in the chain with a bit
> > file attached to it, this is wrong.  You need to describe the chain as
> > seen from the System ACE part in iMPACT correctly or the ACE file won't
> > work as it has no information as to what device it is supposed to be
> > downloaded into.
> >
> > ML401
> > -----
> >    Device #0 XCF32P
> >    Device #1 XC4VLX25     <- Assign bit file here
> >    Device #2 XC95144LX
> >
> > And make sure that you are using 8.1i-SP3 or above as there were some
> > issues with V-4 support in earlier versions.
> >
> > This was covered in a recent thread
> > http://groups.google.com/group/comp.arch.fpga/browse_frm/thread/b734e6591d700376/e80ce592bf58ea4c?lnk=gst&rnum=3#e80ce592bf58ea4c
>
> Thanks Ed, right you are indeed. Next to the icon depicturing the
> System ACE chip I only had a vc4vlx25 icon.
>
> I'm so close, but ... do I really need the configuration for the other
> devices in the chain? I just want to bypass them, but if I right-click
> "Add Xilinx Device", then it seems I have to specify the configuration
> for it. In a vain attempt, I tried to read back the configuration of
> the xcf32p and xc95144xl, but for the xcf32p it never made it past 0%.
> I read the thread above, but it just say "add the missing devices".
>
> Clearly I'm missing something here.
>
> (BTW I'm using the most current WebPACK release 8.2.01i and the ML401).
>
> Thanks,
> Tommy

all other devices need to be in BYPASS (eg no config)
but the during ACE file generation it required to know
what devices are in chain so the ACE file can have
proper JTAG header and trailer

antti

Antti wrote:
> all other devices need to be in BYPASS (eg no config)
> but the during ACE file generation it required to know
> what devices are in chain so the ACE file can have
> proper JTAG header and trailer

Finally.

Thanks Antti. What I needed were two key files:
- %XILINX%\xcfp\data\xcf32p_vo48.bsd and
- %XILINX%\xc9500xl\data\xc95144xl_tq100.bsd

It definitely wasn't obvious to me, but I should probably have perused
the ref designs more careful; ml40x_bit2ace.bit had the secret sauce.

Thanks all.  Hopefully this may help others trying to ACE designs
outside the EDK.

Tommy