kholia/xvc-esp32

Xilinx Virtual Cable Server for ESP32

Overview

This is an implementation of the XVC - Xilinx Virtual Cable protocol for writing to Xilinx FPGAs from an ESP32.

Main Author: Kenta IDA (https://github.com/ciniml)

Author 2: Dhiru Kholia (remove gpio optimizations, fix jtag_xfer function to mimic xvcpi, fix portability problems)

Upstream URL: https://github.com/ciniml/xvc-esp32

This is a port of Derek Mulcahy's XVC implementation for Raspberry Pi (https://github.com/derekmulcahy/xvcpi) to ESP32.

By connecting the ESP32 to the JTAG pins (TDI, TDO, TMS, TCK) of the target FPGA, you can access the JTAG port of the FPGA from a Xilinx tool (Vivado, etc.) via WiFi.

In this example photo, the M5Stack ESP32 module M5Atom Lite is connected to a Zynq XC7Z010 FPGA (on EBAZ4205 'Development' Board).

In this state, if you add and connect as a Virtual Cable from Vivado Hardware Manager with Add Virtual Cable, you can observe the waveform of ILA in the same way as a normal JTAG adapter.

How to use

Change the WiFi credentials in the credentials.h file.

Note: The default pin mappings for the common, low-cost ESP32 WROOM DevKit v1 development board are:

TDI = D25, TDO = D21, TCK = D19, TMS = D22

Feel free to experiment with different ESP32 development boards - most should just work with any problems.

Finally, build the program using Arduino IDE and write it to the ESP32 board.

How to use (Linux version)

make install_arduino_cli
make install_platform
make deps
make upload

Rough Performance Stats ("Speed")

Writing a small bitstream (Blinky with PS7 IP + Ethernet stuff) sized around 400 KiB using Vivado 2021.1 takes around 10 seconds.

Kenta-San's version may offer faster performance, perhaps at the cost of losing some portability across different ESP32 boards.

Tips

If you see the End of startup status: LOW error message in Vivado, check the FPGA power supply's voltage and current ratings.

If cost and ease-of-availability are the driving constraints (at the cost of speed), then this project can suffice. If higher programming speed is a requirement, I recommend using xc3sprog with an FT2232H board.

Related Ideas / Projects

• https://github.com/kholia/xvcpi
• https://github.com/kholia/xvc-pico
• https://github.com/kholia/xvc-esp8266
• https://github.com/kholia/Colorlight-5A-75B
• https://github.com/fusesoc/blinky#ebaz4205-development-board

License

CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) - Public Domain Dedication

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Note: See README-Original.md for full licensing information.