FPGA board

[Mathew Benson]

I saw that.  I can't wait to start looking at it.  If I get everything
working, can I post directions to a wiki?


On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 9:26 AM, Gedare Bloom <gedare at rtems.org> wrote:

> Joel has a public branch with some initial work on microblaze. I'm not
> sure about its status or when it might get merged, but that would be
> the place to start I suppose.
>
> http://git.rtems.org/joel/rtems.git/log/?h=microblaze
>
> -Gedare
>
> On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 8:34 AM, Mathew Benson <mathew.benson at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > I have been evaluating inexpensive FPGA based boards to eventually port
> > RTEMS.  I have the XuLA2 (http://www.xess.com/prods/prod055.php), and
> > started with the OpenRISC.  XuLA2 has a Spartan 6 LX25 and 32 MB of SDRAM
> > and costs $119.  I got the OpenRISC core loaded but switched to
> Microblaze
> > before I tried running code on it.  With the minimum options, OpenRISC
> takes
> > up about 90% of the area and looks like a jumbled mess.  Microblaze
> takes up
> > 25% and looks clean.  I can't get the OpenRISC to pass timing tests over
> 50
> > MHz.  Microblaze goes up to 100 MHz.  But, the Xilinx tools don't support
> > the XuLA2 SDRAM.  I will have to eventually find or write my own SDRAM
> > controller.  The Xilinx software development tools don't support the
> XuLA2
> > loader, so I purchased a Xilinx JTAG.  Now I'm having problems getting
> the
> > XuLA2 to work with JTAG, but I finally got an email from the
> manufacturer.
> >
> > I just purchased a beta Pipistrello board
> > (http://pipistrello.saanlima.com/index.php?title=Welcome_to_Pipistrello)
> > which should arrive Friday.  They will be available in multiple sizes
> with
> > the largest being the Spartan 6 LX45 for $149.  It has 64 MB of DDR
> SDRAM,
> > which is supported by the Xilinx tools.  It also has a USB loader, though
> > the beta board does not.  It has more pins but is a larger board than the
> > XuLA2.  He expects to make production boards available in the next couple
> > weeks.  What I really find interesting is that he already has Linux
> running
> > on a Microblaze core on it and has posted files and instructions on his
> > website.  He even has Arduino ported with the Arduino SDK and IDE ported
> and
> > available on his site.  The LX45 is almost twice the size of the LX25,
> and I
> > believe the Pipistrello uses the faster -3 grade FPGA.  I've read people
> > have even fit software based radios into the LX45.  Lastly, I've been
> > getting better support on Pipistrello.
> >
> > I like the XuLA2 because of the smaller physical size, low cost, and the
> > fact it's breadboardable, but the Pipistrello is better in every other
> > aspect.  Once I get the Pipistrello, I want to start porting RTEMS to the
> > Microblaze.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > rtems-users mailing list
> > rtems-users at rtems.org
> > http://www.rtems.org/mailman/listinfo/rtems-users
> >
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.rtems.org/pipermail/users/attachments/20130403/35ed0cb8/attachment-0001.html>