Virtex-6 FPGA Embedded Kit Reference Design and Documentation

The Virtex®-6 FPGA Embedded Kit enables rapid software application development as well as easy customization of the processor subsystem to meet application requirements.

Note: For information on upgrading from the Virtex-6 FPGA ML605 Evaluation Kit or other domain-specific Virtex-6 design platform, see the specific steps at the bottom of this page.

Download Zip files with Reference Designs & Documentation:

• AXI4 interconnect-based Reference Designs:
  
  • Reference Designs & Docs for ISE Design Suite 13.4
  • Reference Designs & Docs for ISE Design Suite 13.2
  • Reference Designs & Docs for ISE Design Suite 13.1
  • Reference Designs & Docs for ISE Design Suite 12.4
  • Reference Designs & Docs for ISE Design Suite 12.3
    Note: Support for all 12.3 AXI-based designs is Pre-Production.
• CoreConnect PLBv46 bus-based Reference Designs:
  • Reference Designs & Docs for ISE Design Suite 11.4
  • Reference Designs & Docs for ISE Design Suite 12.1
  • Reference Designs & Docs for ISE Design Suite 12.2

Following are the list of documents & reference designs included in the Virtex-6 FPGA Embedded Kit (included in the Zip file above).

Hardware Setup Guide

The Hardware Setup Guide provides step by step instructions to get the ML605 board setup correctly and run the out-of-box demonstrations.

Getting Started Guide

The Getting Started Guide provides an overview of the kit contents, hardware setup steps and review of the demos. It also covers the steps for Installing the required ISE Design Suite tools as well as directions to get started with the detailed Hardware & Software Tutorials.

Targeted Reference Design

• MicroBlaze® Processor Sub-System Design
  This MicroBlaze Processor Sub-System (PSS) design is the starting point for embedded design using the Virtex-6 FPGA Embedded kit. The MicroBlaze PSS includes the most commonly used Embedded IP including:
  • 32-bit MicroBlaze Soft Processor with Memory Management Unit
  • Evaluation version of Ethernet MAC
  • DDR3 Memory Controller
  • On-Chip Block RAM and Parallel & Serial (SPI) NOR Flash memory controllers
  • Serial Interface IP – UART16550, I2C, SPI
  • Basic Embedded IP – Interrupt Controller, Timers, GPIO
  • Infrastructure – Bus infrastructure, Clock & Reset management IP
  • JTAG Debug IP – MicroBlaze Debug Module (MDM)
• Reference Design Datasheet
• Detailed datasheet-style documentation of the MicroBlaze Processor Sub-System including Block Diagram, address-map, pinout, FPGA logic usage & performance.

Tutorials

• Software Tutorial
  This tutorial will guide you through the steps to start Software development using Xilinx SDK (Eclipse IDE) and the MicroBlaze Processor Sub-System.
  
  
• Hardware Tutorial
  This tutorial will guide you through the steps to open the MicroBlaze Processor Sub-System using Platform Studio and add customer user logic to recreate the out-of-the-box embedded kit demo.

Demonstration Files

• MicroBlaze Processor Sub-system with custom user logic.
  
• This is the out-of-box kit demonstration design that includes the MicroBlaze Processor System with custom user logic and a webserver application controlling the DSP filter coefficients and video output. Source files for the demo including the software application and hardware design are included here.

Additional Documentation

• ML605 FPGA Base Evaluation Kit Documentation
  

  This includes ML605 Board User Guide, Schematics, PCB files as well as other base reference designs like MultiBoot and BIST designs.

• ML605 FPGA Connectivty Kit Documentation
  This includes Connectivity Targeted Reference designs including PCIe-Gigabit Ethernet bridge design, Chipscope IBERT design and related documentation.

Upgrading to the Virtex-6 FPGA Embedded Kit

This is for users who currently have any of the following
Virtex-6 kits:

• Virtex-6 FPGA ML605 Evaluation Kit
• Virtex-6 FPGA Connectivity Kit
• Virtex-6 FPGA DSP Kit

Upgrading to the equivalent of the Virtex-6 FPGA Embedded Kit by is performed the following steps:

1. Download the Embedded Targeted Reference Design from the link at the top of this page
2. Copy the Embedded kit demo image from the “CompactFlash_Demo_Image” directory in the Zip file above onto the Compact Flash drive.
3. Purchase the Embedded Development Kit (EDK) or download an evaluation, if not already available on your computer