Xilinx Software Development Kit (SDK)

The Xilinx Software Development Kit (SDK) is the complete Integrated Design Environment for creating powerful and optimized software applications for all Xilinx embedded microprocessors, from the award winning Zynq™-7000 All Programmable SoCs, to the industry-leading MicroBlaze™ soft processor.

• Supports Zynq-7000 AP SoCs, PowerPC© 440 (Virtex®-5), PowerPC© 405 (Virtex-4), and MicroBlaze soft-processor
• Utilizes the Eclipse CDT development environment (version 3.8)
• New Eclipse Target Communication Framework (TCF) target communications and debug support
• Complete Integrated Design Environment (IDE) that interfaces to both the Vivado and ISE embedded hardware design environment
• Complete software design and debug flows supported, including new multi-core and hardware/software debug capabilities
• Editor, compilers, build tools, flash memory management, and JTAG/GDB debug integration
• Supported by Xilinx edition of Mentor Sourcery CodeBench Lite (version 2012.09)
• Custom libraries and device drivers
• Bare-metal and Linux development
• Multi-core aware for both homogeneous and heterogeneous development

Custom Design Aware

Xilinx SDK understands the custom Xilinx-based embedded hardware design that has been defined in either the Vivado Design Suite or the Xilinx Platform Studio (XPS) with ISE. Based on this design, several key parameters are auto-configured, including memory maps, peripheral register settings, tools and library paths, compiler options, JTAG and flash memory settings, debugger connections, and Linux and bare-metal Board Support Packages (BSPs). This custom design-aware pre-configuration, combined with the auto-generation of critical system software, ensures that software development can begin with a minimal learning curve.

Drivers and Libraries

SDK includes user-customizable drivers for all supported Xilinx hardware IPs, POSIX compliant kernel library and networking and file handling libraries. These libraries and drivers can scale for the custom-design based on feature needs, memory requirements and hardware capabilities.

Integrated Debug Now Including Hardware/Software Cross-trigger and Debug

SDK includes an integrated debugger supporting Zynq-7000 AP SoC, MicroBlaze, and PowerPC processors. You can set breakpoints or watchpoints, step through program execution, view the program variables and stack, and view the contents of the memory in the system. You can also simultaneously debug programs running on different processors (in a multi-processor system), all from within the same debug environment.

SDK supports critical hardware/software trigger and debug. The software programmer can specify in SDK the application code breakpoints that will initiate a cross-trigger and Vivado will then capture and display hardware trace data when those conditions are hit. Software engineers can trace and debug the embedded system from the software design and debug environment.

Software Profiling and Optimization

Xilinx SDK includes profiling tools that help to identify bottle necks in the code that might occur due to the interaction of functions that are executed within the programmable logic, and functions executed on the processor. Once identified, these bottle necks can be optimized by migrating the whole function to programmable logic, by optimizing the function code on the processor, or by splitting the function between processor and programmable logic.

Xilinx SDK allows software developers to begin their efforts within minutes of installation.