Programming XCF from MicroBlaze over JTAG???

Hi,

Has anyone had any success in programming a Xilinx XCF using C code in a
MicroBlaze over the JTAG ports?

Any information appreciated.

Thanks!

On Mar 13, 8:34 pm, "Bob Golenda" <bgoli...@nospam.net> wrote:

> Has anyone had any success in programming a Xilinx XCF using C code in a
> MicroBlaze over the JTAG ports?

Not exactly, but some closely related things, such as programming FPGA
and config flashes whose JTAG signals have been connected to GPIO pins
of ordinary (hardware) microcontrollers.

I don't think you'll be able to program the config flash by driving
the FPGA's jtag pins, so you would need some seperate connections from
ordinary I/O pins.

Once your microblaze can twiddle the config flash's jtag signals, you
have a software problem.  My preferences has been to make the embedded
device behave like a jtag cable with some macro commands and act as a
proxy for a program running on a PC.  You could of course embed the
whole thing, but that means putting the algorithm and the data into
the embedded processor.  Your microblaze system may have the resources
for that, my embedded targets don't, so I use a much smaller block of
code that acts as a proxy.

> Has anyone had any success in programming a Xilinx XCF using C code in a
> MicroBlaze over the JTAG ports?

You can do the following:

- Use IMPACT and record the JTAG programming sequence to an XSVF file.
- Read XAPP058 and XAPP503 to learn about the XSVF file specification.
- Implement an XSVF player using C code in a Microblaze.
- Play the recorded JTAG programming sequence in your board.

Using the batch mode of IMPACT, you can script this from your
makefile.

Regards,
Marc

On Mar 15, 11:40 am, "Bob Golenda" <bgoli...@nospam.net> wrote:

> Of course, using GPIO pins.
>
> But, the question is, has anyone actually gotten this to work?

I've done it with a Xilinx Spartan 3 programming from the .bit file
(using a modification of the open source XC3Sprog package)

and for Altera EPC4 config flash and also directly the Stratix-II
FPGA, from .jam files using a modification of Altera's open source jam
player.

I haven't done a Xilinx config flash, but I don't imagine that would
be too hard - one would just modify their reference XSVF player to
control your microblaze as a proxy, or to run on your microblaze.

Hi,

Of course, using GPIO pins.

But, the question is, has anyone actually gotten this to work?

Thanks!

<cs_posting@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1173909021.616924.228790@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> On Mar 13, 8:34 pm, "Bob Golenda" <bgoli...@nospam.net> wrote:
>
> > Has anyone had any success in programming a Xilinx XCF using C code in a
> > MicroBlaze over the JTAG ports?
>
> Not exactly, but some closely related things, such as programming FPGA
> and config flashes whose JTAG signals have been connected to GPIO pins
> of ordinary (hardware) microcontrollers.
>
> I don't think you'll be able to program the config flash by driving
> the FPGA's jtag pins, so you would need some seperate connections from
> ordinary I/O pins.
>
> Once your microblaze can twiddle the config flash's jtag signals, you
> have a software problem.  My preferences has been to make the embedded
> device behave like a jtag cable with some macro commands and act as a
> proxy for a program running on a PC.  You could of course embed the
> whole thing, but that means putting the algorithm and the data into
> the embedded processor.  Your microblaze system may have the resources
> for that, my embedded targets don't, so I use a much smaller block of
> code that acts as a proxy.
>

Hi Marc,

Have you actually done this and gotten it to work?

Thanks!

<jetmarc@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1173953588.688163.253930@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> > Has anyone had any success in programming a Xilinx XCF using C code in a
> > MicroBlaze over the JTAG ports?
>
> You can do the following:
>
> - Use IMPACT and record the JTAG programming sequence to an XSVF file.
> - Read XAPP058 and XAPP503 to learn about the XSVF file specification.
> - Implement an XSVF player using C code in a Microblaze.
> - Play the recorded JTAG programming sequence in your board.
>
> Using the batch mode of IMPACT, you can script this from your
> makefile.
>
> Regards,
> Marc
>

"Bob Golenda" <bgolinda@nospam.net> wrote in message 
news:NNdKh.367$B61.242@newsfe06.lga...
> Hi Marc,
>
> Have you actually done this and gotten it to work?
>
> Thanks!
>

We have it working. I say "we" as it was mostly my software colleague's 
effort:) Apparently it took him a day or less to port the code from the 
appnote to PPC in V4, which we have been using. We are programming Xilinx 
Platform Flash on a slave board using this method.

/Mikhail 

On 15 Mrz., 22:26, "MM" <m...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "Bob Golenda" <bgoli...@nospam.net> wrote in message
>
> news:NNdKh.367$B61.242@newsfe06.lga...
>
> > Hi Marc,
>
> > Have you actually done this and gotten it to work?
>
> > Thanks!
>
> We have it working. I say "we" as it was mostly my software colleague's
> effort:) Apparently it took him a day or less to port the code from the
> appnote to PPC in V4, which we have been using. We are programming Xilinx
> Platform Flash on a slave board using this method.
>
> /Mikhail

yes, I have ported XSVF player too. was to coldfire embedded linux.
the porting itself is simple, and it pretty easy solution when storage
is readily available. if the FPGA system doesnt run linux and only
has small amount of available ram and no nonvolatile storage and no
network and no high speed connections to any hosts, then its more
efficient to program the XCF from bit file directly as then there is
no overhead of the XSVF involved. this is unfortunatly a bit more
than 1 day of work. well at least when doing it first time. Actually
my first time was almost a month. but that was long time ago
when xilinx had not even published the XCFxxP BSDL files yet.
now its more info available so its a bit simpler to get going.
and yet still Xilinx has not and will never publish the XCF
programming
specifications so its a bit RE and testing involved to get all
timeouts
correctly etc, as there is no reference datasheet for then existing :(

Antti

"MM" <mbmsv@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:55toioF26p89uU1@mid.individual.net...
>
> "Bob Golenda" <bgolinda@nospam.net> wrote in message
> news:NNdKh.367$B61.242@newsfe06.lga...
> > Hi Marc,
> >
> > Have you actually done this and gotten it to work?
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
>
> We have it working. I say "we" as it was mostly my software colleague's
> effort:) Apparently it took him a day or less to port the code from the
> appnote to PPC in V4, which we have been using. We are programming Xilinx
> Platform Flash on a slave board using this method.
>
> /Mikhail

This is using XSVFPlayer?  How many M Bytes is the file?  Don't you have to
actually do an output of the file and record that, and then use XSVFPlayer?

"Bob Golenda" <bgolinda@nospam.net> wrote in message 
news:etmKh.242$ED5.20@newsfe04.lga...
>
> This is using XSVFPlayer?  How many M Bytes is the file?  Don't you have 
> to
> actually do an output of the file and record that, and then use 
> XSVFPlayer?
>

We don't really care much about how big is the file as it gets downloaded 
from an external server when needed and the whole purpose of this is a rare 
in-field hardware upgrade.

/Mikhail