Program

This short course is an introduction to digital systems design based on the MicroBlaze soft processor core and hardware-software co-design. It will illustrate the basic design steps targeting high-capacity programmable logic devices (FPGA), such as hardware platform specification, design and specialization, and software design and execution. At the end of this course, students should acquire the following skills:

• Design and prototype integrated systems based on high capacity programmable logic devices (FPGA)
• Use computer-aided design tools for the purposes of modeling, synthesis, implementation, debugging, testing, and optimization

In the lab, students will build the hardware platform based on MicroBlaze and learn how to control basic Nexys-4DDR peripherals through software. The interface to the displays, switches, LEDs, and buttons of the kit must be via GPIO modules that are mapped in the processor's address space.

The following software tools are required: Vitis Software Platform including Vivado Design Suite.

Lecture

Lecture

[Slides]

• Introduction to MicroBlaze
• Design of the hardware platform
• Examples of IP cores
• Introduction to Vitis
• Software development

Lab

Lab

[Nexys-4 DDR board support files] [Block design created during the class] [C code to be tested and completed]

• Design the MicroBlaze-based hardware platform
• Implement in software interaction with buttons, switches, LEDs, and 7-segment displays

References

• Xilinx, Inc., Vivado Design Suite User Guide. Using the Vivado IDE UG893 (v2021.2), 2021.
• Xilinx, Inc., MicroBlaze Processor Reference Guide UG984 (v2022.1), 2022.
• Xilinx, Inc., AXI GPIO v2.0 - LogiCORE IP Product Guide, 2016.