Getting Started with the Xilinx Spartan-6 LX150T Development Kit

Table of Contents ABOUT THIS GUIDE ................................................................................................................................. 3 ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTATION .................................................................................................................. 3 ADDITIONAL SUPPORT RESOURCES ............................................................................................................. 4 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 4 SPARTAN-6 LX150T DEVELOPMENT KIT CONTENTS.................................................................................. 4 INSTALLATION AND LICENSING OF ISE DESIGN SUITE 12......................................................... 5 GETTING STARTED WITH SPARTAN-6 LX150T DEVELOPMENT KIT....................................... 6 THE EMBEDDED REFERENCE DESIGN DEMONSTRATION ............................................................................. 6 EMBEDDED DEMO HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS ......................................................................................... 7 SETTING UP THE S6LX150T DEVELOPMENT BOARD.................................................................................... 7 DOWNLOAD THE S6LX150T DEVELOPMENT KIT EMBEDDED REFERENCE DESIGN .................................... 8 RUNNING THE MEMORY TEST DEMO .......................................................................................................... 8 NEXT STEPS ................................................................................................................................................ 9 GETTING HELP AND SUPPORT ..................................................................................................................... 9 SETTING UP THE HOST PC .................................................................................................................. 10 INSTALL THE USB/UART SOFTWARE DRIVERS ......................................................................................... 10 CONFIGURING THE USB/UART ................................................................................................................ 13 OPEN A TERMINAL PROGRAM ................................................................................................................... 14

About this Guide This guide provides detailed information for getting started with the Xilinx Spartan®-6 LX150T development Kit. If you already have installed ISE Design Suite: Logic Edition onto your computer and if you have already completed the steps in the Hardware Setup Guide you can proceed to the “Next Steps” section of this document to learn more about additional tutorials available for this kit. Otherwise follow the steps outlined below to install and enable the required software for this kit.

Additional Documentation The following documents are available for download at http://www.xilinx.com/products/spartan6 

Spartan-6 Family Overview This overview outlines the features and product selection of the Spartan-6 family



Spartan-6 FPGA Data Sheet: DC and Switching Characteristics This data sheet contains the DC and switching characteristic specifications for the Spartan-6 family



Spartan-6 FPGA Packaging and Pinout Specifications This specification includes the tables for device/package combinations and maximum I/Os, pin definitions, pinout tables, pinout diagrams, mechanical drawings, and thermal specifications.



Spartan-6 FPGA Configuration User Guide This all-encompassing configuration guide includes chapters on configuration interfaces (serial and parallel), multi-bitstream management, bitstream encryption, boundary-scan and JTAG configuration, and reconfiguration techniques.



Spartan-6 FPGA SelectIO Resources User Guide This guide describes the SelectIO™ resources available in all Spartan-6 devices.



Spartan-6 FPGA Clocking Resources User Guide This guide describes the clocking resources available in all Spartan-6 devices, including the DCMs and PLLs.



Spartan-6 FPGA Block RAM Resources User Guide This guide describes the Spartan-6 device block RAM capabilities.



Spartan-6 FPGA GTP Transceivers User Guide This guide describes the GTP transceivers available in the Spartan-6 LXT FPGAs.



Spartan-6 FPGA DSP48A1 Slice User Guide This guide describes the architecture of the DSP48A1 slice in Spartan-6 FPGAs and provides configuration examples.



Spartan-6 FPGA PCB Designers Guide This guide provides information on the PCB design for Spartan-6 devices, with a focus on strategies for making design decisions at the PCB interface level.

Additional Support Resources To search the database of silicon and software questions and answers or to create a technical support case in WebCase, see the Xilinx website at: http://www.xilinx.com/support

Introduction The Xilinx Spartan-6 LX150T Development Kit provides a complete development platform for designing and verifying applications based on the Xilinx Spartan-6 LXT FPGA family. Available with the Spartan-6 LX150T, the kit enables designers to prototype highperformance designs with ease, while providing expandability and customization through the dual FMC LPC expansion slots. The Spartan-6 LX150T system board is available with the LX150T device (XC6SLX150T2FGG676). Serial gigabit transceiver interfaces (GTPs) provide connection to the on-chip PCI Express x1 hard macro or a PCI Express x4 soft macro, one SFP connector, and a SATA Host interface. The system board includes DDR3 SDRAM, Flash memory, a 10/100/1000 Ethernet PHY, and a serial port. Other board features include a USB port, a programmable LVDS clock, user switches, and LEDs. The board also provides two FMC LPC expansion slots, providing a total of 136 high-speed, single-ended and differential user I/O. FMC modules can be easily added to the board for additional application specific functions. This Getting Started Guide will walk you through the steps to setup the Spartan-6 LX150T Development board and run the out-of-box embedded demonstration, which is designed to illustrate the features of the Xilinx MicroBlaze 32-bit soft processor IP core. If you have not already installed the Xilinx ISE® software, you will be directed through the steps to install the software, get updates and generate a license.

Spartan-6 LX150T Development Kit Contents What’s Inside the Box o

Spartan-6 LX150T Development Board with the XC6SLX150T-3FGG676 FPGA along with     

12 V power supply USB cable ISE® Logic Edition software (device locked for XC6SLX150T-3FGG676 FPGA) Getting Started Guide Downloadable documentation and reference design

What’s available online o

o

License for ISE Design Suite 12 Logic Edition 

http://www.xilinx.com/getproduct



http://www.xilinx.com/tools/faq.htm

Development Kit home page with Documentation and Reference Designs 

o

http://em.avnet.com/spartan6lx150t-dev

Technical Support 

http://xilinx.com/support

Installation and Licensing of ISE Design Suite 12 This Spartan-6 LX150T Development kit comes with entitlement to a full seat of the ISE Design Suite: Logic Edition that is device locked to a Spartan-6 XC6SLX150T-3FGG676 device. This software can be installed from the DVD or the Web installer can be downloaded from http://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.htm. You will need to install the ISE 12.1 software first and then the 12.2 software update. For detailed information on licensing & installation, please refer to the http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/sw_manuals/xilinx12/irn.pdf document.

Getting Started with Spartan-6 LX150T Development Kit This Spartan®-6 LX150T Development Kit comes with an embedded demonstration available as part of the web downloaded documentation package. You can run this demo after installing ISE® Design Suite to get an overview of the features of the Spartan-6 LX150T board.

The Embedded Reference Design Demonstration The following figure shows a high-level block diagram of the reference design. The design consists of:  MicroBlaze Processor  16KB of BRAM  128MB of DDR3 SDRAM  32MB of Flash  Timers  Interrupt Controller  RS232 Port  RS232-USB Bridge  DIP and Push Switches  USB 2.0 Interface  User LEDs  Real-Time Clock  Temp Sensor  Microprocessor Debug Module (MDM) JTAG connection

OSC @ 100MHz

BRAM Controller

BRAM (16K)

JTAG Header

Temp Sensor

Real-Time Clock

Reset Switch

MDM

Interrupt Controller

I2C

Timers

BRAM Controller

MicroBlaze Processor Core PLB

MPMC

Memory Controller

GPIO

GPIO

GPIO

USB 2.0

UART

UART

Flash (32MB)

Push Switches

DIP Switches

LEDs

USB 2.0 PHY

RS232 Connector

RS232-USB Bridge

FPGA

DDR3 (128MB)

Spartan-6 Embedded Reference Design

Embedded Demo Hardware Requirements     

Computer with 1 GB RAM and 1 GB virtual memory (recommended) Avnet S6LX150T development board Power supply USB cable JTAG programming cable (USB or PC4)

Setting up the S6LX150T development board      

Install a jumper on JP4 pins 1-2. Connect the JTAG cable to J9 and the parallel port or USB port of the PC. Connect the USB cable to JR1 and the USB port of the PC. Connect power supply to J16. Slide the SW11 power switch to the ON position. Start a Hyper Terminal session and set the serial port parameters to 19200 baud rate, 8 bits, 1 stop bit, no parity and no flow control (please refer to the Setting up the Host PC section at the end of this document for installing the software driver for the USBRS232 port and setting up the UART).

Download the S6LX150T Development Kit Embedded Reference Design Please go to the http://em.avnet.com/spartan6lx150t-dev page and click on Support Files and Downloads on this page to access the reference design download page. Under the App Notes/Ref Designs -> ISE Design Suite 11.4 or App Notes/Ref Designs -> ISE Design Suite 12.2, you will download a zip file called “s6lx150t_embedded_design.zip”. Unzip this file to the hard drive on your computer.

Running the Memory Test Demo 

Use iMPACT to configure the FPGA with the memory_test bit file located in the root directory of the S6LX150T_embedded_design reference design zip file.



You should see the following on the Hyper Terminal.

Note: To run the complete demos included in the S6LX150T Embedded Reference Design, you would need to upgrade to ISE Design Suite 12 System Edition.

Next Steps Now that you have run through the embedded demo and installed ISE Design Suite Logic Edition, you are ready to create custom systems for the Spartan-6 LX150T FPGA. You can start by downloading various reference designs for this board from the Avnet web site at http://em.avnet.com/spartan6lx150t-dev.

Getting Help and Support For questions regarding products within your Product Entitlement Account, send an email message to your regional customer services representative 

Canada, USA and South America - [email protected]



Europe, Middle East, and Africa - [email protected]



Asia Pacific including Japan - [email protected]

For technical support including the installation and use of your product license file you may contact Xilinx Online Technical Support at www.support.xilinx.com. On this site you will also find the following resources for assistance: 

Software, IP and Documentation Updates



Access to Technical Support Web Tools



Searchable Answer Database with Over 4,000 Solutions



User Forums



Training - Select instructor-led classes and recorded e-learning options

Contact Avnet Support for any questions regarding the Spartan-6 LX150T Development Kit reference designs or kit hardware http://www.em.avnet.com/spartan6lx150t-dev

Setting up the Host PC This section describes how to install the USB drivers on the host PC for the USB-UART connection to the LX150T board.

Install the USB/UART software drivers The Spartan-6 LX150T Development Board has a USB-UART based on the CP2102 chipset. Use of this feature requires that a USB driver be installed on your Host PC.

If Windows recognizes the USB UART and loads the software driver please skip ahead to the next section. However, if your PC does not recognize the USB UART as a COM port the Found New Hardware Wizard will start, prompting you to specify the location of the software driver to install. Leave the wizard window open and follow these steps to download and install the device driver.

Use your web browser to navigate to the LX150T’s product page on the Avnet DRC:

http://www.em.avnet.com/spartan6lx150t-dev  On the LX150T’s “Support Files and Downloads” page, double-click on the “CP2102 USB Drivers” link to download Windows software drivers for the SiLabs CP2102 USB to RS232 serial bridge chip.

When prompted, click the Save button and download the driver zip file to a folder of your choice.

Once downloaded, extract the CP2102_USB_Drivers.zip file. The extracted driver files will be in a folder named \ CP2102_USB_Drivers.

Go to the Found New Hardware Wizard window and select Install from a list or specific location and click Next:

Select Search for the best driver in these locations and Include this location in the search, then click Browse and navigate to the folder where you extracted the driver zip file. Click Next when ready:

Windows will copy the appropriate driver files and prompt you with the following screen. Click Finish to complete the driver installation. Windows will then load the software driver and you will be ready to use the USB UART.

Configuring the USB/UART You should check the Device Manager on your host PC to verify the Com port used, as you may need to modify the HyperTerminal shortcut supplied to match this host specific value. Follow these steps:  In Windows Explorer, right-click on My Computer and select Manage.  Select Device Manager in the left panel  Select Ports (Com & LPT) in the right panel. The CP210x USB to UART bridge should indicate the Com port selected. In the case of this example, it is COM6. You should write this down for future reference, and keep in mind that it might change if you reboot your computer.

Figure 1 – USB-UART – Verifying COM port in Device Manager

Close the Computer Management Window.

Open a Terminal Program On your PC, open a serial terminal program. By default, Windows comes with HyperTerminal which can be accessed from the start menu: Select Start  Programs  Accessories  Communications  HyperTerminal

Figure 2 – HyperTerminal – Setup Screen 1 of 3 Specify something like “LX150T” for the name of your terminal session, then click OK.

Figure 3 – HyperTerminal – Setup Screen 2 of 3

Select the COM port corresponding to the previous installation step, then click OK.

Figure 4 – HyperTerminal – Setup Screen 3 of 3 Specify the settings of the serial connection:  Bits per second = 19200  Data bits = 8  Parity = None  Stop bits = 1  Flow control = None Then click OK.