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Both universities and corporations share a
desire for students and engineers who can
easily integrate into high-technology professions
after graduation. Collaborative
efforts are the key to developing the necessary
skill sets.
One such collaboration is the recent
Xilinx® University Program – University of
New Mexico (XUP-UNM) prototype
board project. When the XUP needed
someone to develop a prototype board for
donated Virtex™ 1000 devices, UNM
jumped at the chance. The quality of this
project clearly shows the high level of interaction
between the local Xilinx facility, the
XUP, and the university.
UNM students had to meet several key
design criteria before beginning the project.
The most important was that they had
to design the board using donated Virtex
1000-BGA560 FPGAs. These millionsystem-
gate devices are ideal for university
projects. Their functionality and size make
them suitable for a wide range of projects
with the Xilinx Integrated Software
Environment (ISE), System Generator, or
Embedded Development Kit (EDK).
Project Requirements
As shown in Figure 1, the primary goal was
a platform on which students could complete
entire projects, as well as one that
would allow easy interfacing to multiple
external options for increased capability.
Another requirement for the prototype
board was to allow a maximum number of
inputs and outputs; students need to be
able to get signals into and out of the
board. Where possible, it was beneficial to
interface with Digilent™ series circuit
cards already available.
Because Digilent input/output boards
are available to schools through the XUP
donation program, this allows students a
wide range of input and output options by
switching between plug-in modules.
The board provides a multitude of output
connectors:
- Standard 40-pin 0.1 inch connectors
on Digilent I/O boards, which make it
possible for students to obtain low-cost
push pins that allow interfaces to logic
analyzers and other test equipment.
- Hirose 140-pin connectors
that mate to
the new high-speed
bus series of Digilent
boards, featuring
memory and analogto-
digital conversion.
- Standard 96-pin connectors
that allow
basic interfacing to a
6U-VME mounting
platform.
- Standard 9-pin serial
and 25-pin parallel
connectors and their
associated interfacing devices.
A nice feature is the ability to switch the
25-pin connector between enhanced parallel
port and JTAG modes. By flipping a
switch, students can JTAG program the
board using a standard parallel printer
cable. This is a very useful feature in a student
environment because it allows professors
to mount the boards in a stationary
position; students can program the board without vertically mounting a programming
cable to the header pins, reducing the
possibility of the header pins breaking off.
From an academic standpoint, another
great benefit is the placement of dual
FPGAs on a single platform. The design
team connected 100 pins from one FPGA
directly into the second FPGA. The ability
to easily develop projects that process data
between dual FPGAs adds an entirely new
level of project capabilities.
Power Supply
Because the XUP-UNM board consists of
dual Virtex FPGAs, three XC18V04 in-system
programmable configuration PROMs,
and a wide variety of other parts, we needed
a power system that could provide several
amperes of filtered power over an
extended period of time. The heart of the
power system is a Texas Instruments™
TPS54616 buck switching power supply.
This supply provides a stable 3.3 volt output
to a maximum 6 amp range.
Because everything else on the board is
driven by this source, 6 amps was a good
supply level. Students designed a large portion
of the power filtering using Xilinx
application note XAPP623, “Power
Distribution System (PDS) Design: Using
Bypass/Decoupling Capacitors.”
Both students and professors are currently
evaluating prototypes of these platforms
at the University of Texas (Austin),
University of Texas (El Paso), and West
Point. According to Colonel Bryan Goda,
an academy instructor at West Point, “This
board has great potential within an undergraduate
curriculum. We are looking forward
to seeing what it can do.”
Conclusion
The XUP-UNM prototype platform is a
tremendous example of how academia and
industry can work together to accomplish a
common goal. Experiences learned in these
types of endeavors pay great benefits by
allowing students to learn from both real-world
practice and theoretical classroom
experiences.
UNM has been a long-time supporter
of Xilinx software, hardware, and
training, and the school has developed a
number of online tutorials on many topics.
One series includes ISE, VHDL,
Floorplanner, System Generator,
and XPower (www.eece.unm.edu/vhdl/).
Another series includes EDK and System
Generator (www.eece.unm.edu/xup/ and
www.eece.unm.edu/signals). And yet
another indication of the interactive
efforts between academia and industry
are the annual professors workshops
(www.eece.unm.edu/xup/workshops.htm).
Dr. Howard Pollard, Dr. Marios
Pattichis, Alonzo Vera, and Jorge Parra of
UNM were essential to the success of this
project. Frank Wirtz and Reno Sanchez of
Xilinx Albuquerque, Rick Ballantyne of
Xilinx Canada, and Jeff Weintraub of XUP
were also a tremendous help. For more
information on any of these topics, e-mail
Craig Kief at kiefc@ece.unm.edu or Alonzo
Vera at alonzo@ece.unm.edu.
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