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Is there any way I can apply stimulus signals on my FPGA board from my PC itself, and view the output of hardware in any simulation software? I am working on Spartan 3A development board provided by numato labs (elbert V2) https://numato.com/product/elbert-v2-spartan-3a-fpga-development-board/ It is a relatively small board with few peripherals, so the number of LEDs for output and push-buttons for input is quite less.

I am a newbie to FPGAs but have sound knowledge on verilog. Please help me out with this

Thanks

Sparsh
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1 Answers1

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The board does not have an physical interface intended for use as wired connection/communications (no ethernet, no usb, no uart, etc) to a PC.

These are the easiest ways I can think of for an 'elbert V2' board to communicate with a PC:

  1. The board has a micro SD connector to access files on the micro SD interface. Those files could be accessed by a Verilog simulation.

  2. A USB to UART adapter could be used with the boards GPIO interface.
    Here is an example:
    https://www.amazon.com/3-3V-UART-Serial-Cable-TTL-232R-3V3/dp/B078GMQPLT
    The cable provides 3.3V TTL and the board has 3.3V gpio ports so that is encouraging. Probably just need to connect 3 wires tx/rx/ground.
    You would need to design or find UART RTL IP for the FPGA.
    Designing the UART would be a good intermediate level Verilog project.
    Use procom or similar software on the PC to communicate with the USB/UART com port on the PC and a file. Verilog simulations can access the data in the file.

Mikef
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  • The board provides USB2.0 for for flash memory, can't it be used for applying stimulus or viewing internal signals ? – Sparsh Oct 15 '21 at 17:47
  • Take a look at page 3 of the schematic. The usb connector provides two signal pins D+ and D-. The schematic is text searchable, search on these and you will find they connect to the PIC, and the PICS ICSP (in circuit debug) connector. They don't connect to the FPGA. Maybe they can 'pass thru' the PIC on the way to the FPGA you would need to figure out how to program the PIC to use it's FPGA configuration connections as general purpose IO after configuration. I don't know if its possible, but its not the main and plain design intent. The usb is intended to configure the FPGA's flash. – Mikef Oct 16 '21 at 04:11
  • Thanks for your reply. I am new to FPGAs and don't know how to start and which one to buy. Can you please Help ? Also I have seen this Xilinx Chipscope software that allows inserting logic dedicated for simualting testbench. Will this support allow me do my stuff ? – Sparsh Oct 16 '21 at 12:47
  • "How do I get started" in FPGA design is a different question. Its asked and answered very often on the internet including stackoverflow. – Mikef Oct 17 '21 at 03:57
  • If you found this question helpful please consider accepting and voting. https://stackoverflow.com/help/someone-answers – Mikef Oct 17 '21 at 04:00