This manual provides additional usage details about the FPGA. Specifically, it provides instructions on SW development flows and testing procedures. Refer to the [FPGA Setup]({{< relref “doc/getting_started/setup_fpga” >}}) guide for more information on initial setup.
The FPGA is meant for both boot ROM and general software development. The flow for each is different, as the boot ROM is meant to be fairly static while general software can change very frequently.
The FPGA bitstream is built after compiling whatever code is sitting in sw/device/lib/testing/test_rom. This binary is used to initialize internal FPGA memory and is part of the bitstream directly.
To update this content without rebuilding the FPGA, a flow is required to splice a new boot ROM binary into the bitstream. There are two prerequisites in order for this flow to work:
With these steps in place, a script can be invoked to take a new binary and push its contents into an existing bitfile. For details, please see the splice_rom.sh script.
See example below:
$ cd $REPO_TOP $ ./util/fpga/splice_rom.sh $ bazel run //sw/host/opentitantool load-bitstream build/lowrisc_systems_chip_earlgrey_cw310_0.1/synth-vivado/lowrisc_systems_chip_earlgrey_cw310_0.1.bit
The script assumes that there is an existing bitfile build/lowrisc_systems_chip_earlgrey_cw310_0.1/synth-vivado/lowrisc_systems_chip_earlgrey_cw310_0.1.bit (this is created after following the steps in [FPGA Setup]({{< relref “doc/getting_started/setup_fpga” >}})).
The script assumes that there is an existing boot ROM image under build-bin/sw/device/lib/testing/test_rom and then creates a new bitfile of the same name at the same location. The original input bitfile is moved to build/lowrisc_systems_chip_earlgrey_cw310_0.1/synth-vivado/lowrisc_systems_chip_earlgrey_cw310_0.1.bit.orig.
opentitantool can then be used to directly flash the updated bitstream to the FPGA.
After building, the FPGA bitstream contains only the boot ROM. Using this boot ROM, the FPGA is able to load additional software to the emulated flash, such as software in the sw/device/benchmark, sw/device/examples and sw/device/tests directories. To load additional software, opentitantool is required.
Also the binary you wish to load needs to be built first. For the purpose of this demonstration, we will use sw/device/examples/hello_world, but it applies to any software image that is able to fit in the emulated flash space. The example below builds the hello_world image and loads it onto the FPGA.
$ cd ${REPO_TOP} $ bazel run //sw/host/opentitantool set-pll # This needs to be done only once. $ bazel build //sw/device/examples/hello_world:hello_world_fpga_cw310_bin $ bazel run //sw/host/opentitantool bootstrap $(ci/scripts/target-location.sh //sw/device/examples/hello_world:hello_world_fpga_cw310_bin)
Uart output:
I00000 test_rom.c:81] Version: earlgrey_silver_release_v5-5886-gde4cb1bb9, Build Date: 2022-06-13 09:17:56 I00001 test_rom.c:87] TestROM:6b2ca9a1 I00000 test_rom.c:81] Version: earlgrey_silver_release_v5-5886-gde4cb1bb9, Build Date: 2022-06-13 09:17:56 I00001 test_rom.c:87] TestROM:6b2ca9a1 I00002 test_rom.c:118] Test ROM complete, jumping to flash! I00000 hello_world.c:66] Hello World! I00001 hello_world.c:67] Built at: Jun 13 2022, 14:16:59 I00002 demos.c:18] Watch the LEDs! I00003 hello_world.c:74] Try out the switches on the board I00004 hello_world.c:75] or type anything into the console window. I00005 hello_world.c:76] The LEDs show the ASCII code of the last character.
For more details on the exact operation of the loading flow and how the boot ROM processes incoming data, please refer to the boot ROM readme.