Get a Free Board -- Seeking 2 People to Build a Project with Digilent CMOD S7 featuring Spartan-7 FPGA

well i'm not  sure about your project but you don't expect to many GPIO's on FPGA

i think thy are marketing FPGA devices as DATA accelerator much more than other uses

the spartan 7 is unique is that its the only spartan that is supported on vivado

all other ver you have to Use ISE to program.

now this make it much easier to use with ( MicroBlaze Soft Processor )

And AXI interface

the ( MicroBlaze Soft Processor ) is somewhat similar to how you can program the zend-7000 architecture

for me i was looking to buy the  (spartan 7) and the artix 7 boards for that reason

i dont care about the numbers of GPIO's

and you can use any pin for serial communication using an ip core or even VHDL code

so really this would get the job done .

Yes, It is limited on GPIO. I am interfacing one with a SPI bus to a PIC32MZ2048EFH250 as I need some of the IO to be capable of switching faster than 250Mhz of the PIC GPIO (Limited to 100Mhz Port speed). I also ran out of pins on the PIC32 because it utilities multiple add on PCBs 6 USART, RS485 ASCII, RS485 MODBUS rtu, USB2.0, 100Mbit LAN, External Keyboard, GLCD SPI display (Separate SPI bus), CAN bus, 32 Analogue inputs 2 of which double up with the A7 all multi selected via mux's, so quite a busy project. The A7 specifically interfaces with a new product that is also being developed and connects to all the primary nets (Master nets I think they are called) some of the secondary nets are used also but not many, I was asked to get the S7 due to the fact it is supposed to be the latest and easier to program. But....the original test device used the same chip-set as the A7 although I would still need to generate my own code to interface and run specific test routines.

Hi Miguel.

I want to respond to you and your concerns.

Let me step back a quick moment.

One of the reasons I got these boards (element14 paid for them) was I wanted a little more flexibility in choosing people and timelines. I also wanted to get people who may not feel like they have the background to compete in a full FPGA board roadtest. I want to give opportunities to members who are interested in FPGAs and perhaps need something to learn from. (I have another board that I will be looking for people to blog for.)

So, you say: "Yeah I'm new... and FPGAs have always looked a bit scary to me. The most that I've done has been to download Vivado and play a bit with it (without any real FPGA of course). How was your FPGA learning journey?"

I think you said you have downloaded Vivado and played around with it a bit.

I hope we can make FPGAs less scary to you as well as other members.

It appears your concern was over the requirements I spelled out: 1-month to test and experiment and then write a blog,

I realize everyone is different; we learn at different rates. One month was my ball park time, but this is a blog, not a roadtest, so there is some flexibility.

If you were very experienced, I guess I would expect the blog to be more along the lines of a project. But you have less experience.

So, perhaps the goal of your blog would be to work with the board with open eyes and go through it and write about the obstacles you are experiencing as someone new to programmable logic technology. Tell us about the board. Tell us about your experiences with Vivado. Tell us what other obstacles you are confronting. Tell us about your successes as well.

Now, where can you get help?

Well, a fantastic resource would be by an element14 member, Adam Taylor. Adam is now making himself available to answer questions. You can ask theme here: Get Your Xilinx FPGA/Programmable SoC Questions Answered here

This resource should help you as well: https://reference.digilentinc.com/reference/programmable-logic/cmod-s7/reference-manual

So, I've described how you can write the blog. What about the timeline? How about an extra two weeks? This will give you a bit more time to get yourself situated in working with this board.

I'd like to give this to you because you responded first. Please email me privately with your mailing information: rscasny

If you choose not to, please tell me, and I'll have to select someone else.

Thanks.

Randall

Hi Randall,

I am a C,C++,C# developer, My current job role is IT & Business systems Manager. I spend most of my day programming in c# creating applications and customising Epicor (an ERP system).

I have not got into FPGA programming yet but I would like to start getting into programming them.

I have many protect hobbies one of which is with the Resbery Pi and my own library for CRT output emulation.  

You can follow my progress over the last 18 months on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT73WExrpXVzgeo3...

Hi Ben.

I will be launching another free FPGA board project/giveaway next week. So, stay tuned.

Thanks for your email.

Randall

Oh my goodness, How difficult is it to install and use the Vidado program....after downloading and installing it I then had to download files to access the Cmod and then put them into a specific folder, easy.....no the program would not reference them, after about 4 hours of fiddling I finally got it to recognize the board.

At this point I had another project to do but hopefully I can make a start on figuring out how to create and transfer a program. It looks easy enough and the use of dragging block components to help visualize the internal devices and route them looks better than any program I have used to date. Is there any other programs that you would recommend for the Cmod? as the Vidado only comes with a 30 day trial, If it is useful and I can get to grips with it I may get a full licence.

There is a free (as in beer) version of Vivado with no time limits.

https://www.xilinx.com/products/design-tools/vivado/vivado-webpack.html

MK

Thanks Michael K I must have installed the other version, I have now downloaded the free version, I will have a go on this laptop and see what happens.

Thanks again,

Mike C

It's still the same monster - just that you don't have to pay for it !

The Xilinx tools are very capable but hard to get into - it looks as if you are committed to the Xilinx series 7 route, but if not you might find it easier to start with Lattice (simplest tool set and some nice cheap and simple parts).

Of course, if you need the high end stuff the Series 7 parts offer you just have to bite the bullet and get into Vivado.

MK

Vivado is the only tool for working with the Spartan 7, and it is a huge unwieldy download. It is free though.

Whenever I'm considering something like a road tests I will often do a bit of background, download the appropriate datasheets, software, etc. You should be able to write some Verilog / VHDL and synthesize it if you want to get your head round it. You could even knock up a test bench to see if it works. All of this is possible with out any hardware.