TFT LCD Panel - Downloading Example Designs Stored on an SD Card

Frozen Content

Modified by Admin on Sep 13, 2017

When an SD memory card is inserted into the NB2DSK01 motherboard's SD card reader, the icon becomes enabled on the Home screen of the GUI. Touch this icon to access the Examples sub-screen.

Figure 1. Example designs.

This screen of the GUI lists all EXAMPLE files (*.example) found on the SD card. The upper region of the screen provides a short description of each example. Touch an entry to populate the lower region of the screen with a more detailed description.

Examples appearing in the list can be downloaded directly to the FPGA device on the daughter board. Simply select an example and then touch the icon that appears at the bottom-right corner of the screen.

The EXAMPLE file itself is simply a list of constraint records. Two additional (non-constraint) records are used to store the text for the short and long descriptions that get displayed on TFT LCD panel, for example:

Record=ShortDescription | Text="Ethernet Analyser"
Record=LongDescription | Text="The Ethernet Analyser example provides capture and filter functionality of packets seen on the PB03 Ethernet connection"

A set of constraint records are used to declare the hardware configuration - the boards required within the NanoBoard system for the design to run. Board revision must be included when specifying the constraint for the daughter board or a peripheral board (e.g. PB03.06 for revision 6 of the peripheral board PB03). Revision of the NanoBoard is not necessary – as it is assumed that the design is to run on a daughter board plugged into the NB2DSK01, and so the revision of the motherboard is not checked.

For example, to run the Ethernet Analyser design on a Xilinx Spartan-3 device, which also involves use of peripheral board PB03, the following constraint entries would be made:

A single constraint is used to define the clock speed to be used for the design, for example:

Record=Constraint | TargetKind=Clock | TargetId=CLK_BRD | FPGA_CLOCK_FREQUENCY=49.5 Mhz

Finally, constraint records are used to declare which files to use when programming the daughter board FPGA device with the design. This will include the FPGA programming file and typically a program code file (*.hex) – the latter loaded into the motherboard's M25P80 SPI Flash memory device that is solely used for embedded storage purposes (designated U20 on the board).

If using a folder structure on the SD card, the download files are expected to reside in the same folder as the EXAMPLE file itself.

The following entries point to files to be used for a design targeting the Xilinx Spartan-3 on the DB30:

Record=Constraint | TargetKind=FPGA_FILE | Filename="dsf_ethernet_analyser_cclk.bit"
Record=Constraint | TargetKind=SERIAL_FLASH_FILE | Filename="ethernet_analyser_system_XROM.hex"

Before the list of examples is populated, a check is made between the required hardware system configuration (specifically the daughter board and peripheral board(s) defined in each EXAMPLE file) and the actual hardware system configuration (daughter board and peripheral board(s) detected using the 1-Wire ID devices resident on each board). If a design example cannot run on the current hardware system, it will not appear in the list.