< Board Support Packages

Board Support Packages

Board Support Package (BSP) is the collective term referring to all of the software components required to match a given operating system (and its environment) to a given hardware design (board). BSPs commonly contain low-level operating system and device driver code that is dependent on the hardware and upon which the rest of the operating system layers. In addition, a BSP might also contain other files containing directives, compilation parameters, and hardware parameters that are used to configure the operating system. Since a given Xilinx® hardware platform is configurable, fixed board support packages are not possible. Therefore, a custom board support package must be generated for each hardware design that you create.

SDK can be used to create board support packages for third-party operating systems that are supported on the Xilinx processors. The board support package appears as a project in the SDK Navigator view. You can configure each BSP project in various ways and then run a BSP generation process. The BSP generation process typically ends with a collection of files generated in the workspace, which you must then take into the third-party environment to proceed with building the operating system and applications. The specifics of what files must be collected and how they must be used depends on the third-party operating system in question.

For a comprehensive listing of all third-party offerings, refer to http://www.xilinx.com/ise/embedded/epartners/listing.htm.

Note: You cannot link application projects created in SDK with BSP projects. You must do application development for the BSP only in the development environment offered by the third-party vendor.

Creating a Board Support Package
Configuring a Board Support Package
Generating a Board Support Package
Installing third-party software components

New Board Support Package Project dialog box