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This lab presents the steps to setup an environment for using the EVAL-AD5755SDZ evaluation board together with the BeMicro SDK USB stick and the Nios II Embedded Development Suite (EDS). Below is presented a picture of the EVAL-AD5755SDZ Evaluation Board with the BeMicro SDK Platform.
For component evaluation and performance purposes, as opposed to quick prototyping, the user is directed to use the part evaluation setup. This consists of:
The SDP-B controller board is part of Analog Devices System Demonstration Platform (SDP). It provides a high speed USB 2.0 connection from the PC to the component evaluation board. The PC runs the evaluation software. Each evaluation board, which is an SDP compatible daughter board, includes the necessary installation file required for performance testing.
Note: it is expected that the analog performance on the two platforms may differ.
Below is presented a picture of SDP-B Controller Board with the EVAL-AD5755SDZ Evaluation Board.
The AD5755 is a quad, voltage and current output DAC that operates with a power supply range from −26.4 V to +33 V. On-chip dynamic power control minimizes package power dissipation in current mode. This is achieved by regulating the voltage on the output driver from 7.4 V to 29.5 V using a dc-to-dc boost converter optimized for minimum on chip power dissipation.
The EVAL-AD5755SDZ evaluation board is designed to help customers quickly prototype new AD5755 circuits and reduce design time. To power the AD5755SDZ evaluation board supply +/-15V between the AVSS (-15V) and AVDD (+15V) inputs for the analog supply and 5V between PGND(0V) and AVCC(+5V) as DC-to-DC supply voltage.
The first objective is to ensure that you have all of the items needed and to install the software tools so that you are ready to create and run the evaluation project.
Below is presented the list of required hardware items:
Below is presented the list of required software tools:
The Quartus II design software and the Nios II EDS is available via the Altera Complete Design Suite DVD or by downloading from the web.
After installation add to the “Path” system variable the entry “%QUARTUS_ROOTDIR%\bin\“ on the third position in the list.
Create a folder called “ADIEvalBoardLab” on your PC and extract the ad5755_evalboardlab.zip archive to this folder. Make sure that there are NO SPACES in the directory path. After extracting the archive the following folders should be present in the ADIEvalBoardLab folder: FPGA, Software, NiosCpu.
After the Quartus II and Nios II software packages are installed, you can plug the BeMicro SDK board into your USB port. Your Windows PC will find the new hardware and try to install the driver.
Since Windows cannot locate the driver for the device the automatic installation will fail and the driver has to be installed manually. In the Device Manager right click on the USB-Blaster device and select Update Driver Software.
In the next dialog box select the option Browse my computer for driver software. A new dialog will open where it is possible to point to the driver’s location. Set the location to altera\<version number>\quartus\drivers\usb-blaster and press Next.
If Windows presents you with a message that the drivers have not passed Windows Logo testing, please click “Install this driver software anyway”. Upon installation completion a message will be displayed to inform that the installation is finished.
The next sections of this lab present all the steps needed to create a fully functional project that can be used for evaluating the operation of the ADI platform. It is possible to skip these steps and load into the FPGA an image that contains a fully functional system for the ADI platform evalution. The first step of the quick evaluation process is to program the FPGA with the image provided in the lab files. Before the image can be loaded the Quartus II Web Edition tool or the Quartus II Programmer must be installed on your computer.
To load the FPGA image the first thing to do is to start a Nios2 Command Shell. To start the Nios II command shell on Windows platforms, on the Start menu, click All Programs . On the All Programs menu, on the Altera 13.0 Web Edition submenu, on the Nios II EDS 13.0 submenu, click Nios II 13.0 Command Shell . The command shell is a Bourne-again shell (bash) with a pre-configured environment.
After the shell was started up, the first thing is to change the current path to project's directory path by typing the following command:
cd /cygdrive/<Disk Label>/<Project Path>/AD5755/Console and hit Enter.
To configure the BeMicroSDK and run the software application have to run a bash script called program_bemicro.sh, this can be done by using the following command: ./program_bemicro.sh and hit Enter. This script will configure the BeMicroSDK with the corresponding .sof file and will download and run the software application, and starts the stand-alone nios2-terminal.exe application.
If the last message is AD5755 OK , it means that the configuration was successful and the PC is connected to the device through JTAG-UART.
The AD5755 support the following commands, which can used to evaluate the AD5755 converter:
Command | Description |
---|---|
help? | Display all available commands |
register? | Get register value for a specified channel, the command has two arguments: register address and channel |
register= | Set a register value, the command has four arguments: register type, which can be data or control, register address, channel number and the desired value |
power? | Display the power state of the dc-to-dc converters, DAC and internal amplifiers for the selected channel. The command has one argument : channel |
power= | Set up the power state of the dc-to-dc converters, DAC and internal amplifiers for the selected channel. The command has two arguments: channel and 1 for ON and 0 for OFF |
range? | Display the range of the selected channel. The command has one argument : channel |
range= | Set the range of the selected channel. Has two argument: channel and range |
voltage? | Display the output voltage of a specified channel. The command has one argument: channel |
voltage= | Set the output voltage of a specified channel. The command using two arguments: channel and the desired value |
current? | Display the output current of a specified channel. The command has one argument: channel |
current= | Set the output current of a specified channel. The command using two arguments: channel and the desired value |
Note: When using the standalone nios2-terminal for interfacing with the AD5755, it might happen that no characters are echoed from the console, and the backspace are ignored. In this case should be used the Nios II Terminal Console windows from the Nios II IDE to evaluate the device.
The lab is delivered together with a set of design files that are used to evaluate the ADI part. The FPGA image that must be loaded into the BeMicroSDK FPGA is included in the design files. This section presents the components included in the FPGA image and also the procedure to load the image into the FPGA.
The following components are implemented in the FPGA design:
Name | Address | IRQ |
---|---|---|
CPU | 800 | - |
Main PLL | 80 | - |
JTAG UART | 90 | 0 |
EPCS FLASH CONTROLLER | 1800 | 1 |
OnChip RAM | 10000 | - |
LED GPIO | 100 | - |
SPI_0_P0 | 2000 | 3 |
SPI_1_P0 | 2040 | 5 |
GPIO | 2080 | - |
CTRL GPIO | 20A0 | - |
SPI_0_P1 | 0 | 4 |
SPI_1_P1 | 20 | 6 |
SYS ID | 40 | - |
TIMER | 60 | 2 |
I2C_0 | C0 | 7 |
I2C_1 | E0 | 8 |
To load the FPGA image the following steps must be performed:
After finishing, the image is permanently loaded to the configuration Flash and the system will start with a blinking LED after reset or power up.
This section presents the steps for developing a software application that will run on the BeMicroSDK system and will be used for controlling and monitoring the operation of the ADI evaluation board.
Launch the Nios II SBT from the Start → All Programs → Altera → Nios II EDS 13.0 → Nios II 13.0 Software Build Tools for Eclipse (SBT).
NOTE: Windows 7 users will need to right-click and select Run as administrator. Another method is to right-click and select Properties and click on the Compatibility tab and select the Run This Program As An Administrator checkbox, which will make this a permanent change.
The tool will create two new software project directories. Each Nios II application has 2 project directories in the Eclipse workspace.
Since you chose the blank project template, there are no source files in the application project directory at this time. The BSP contains a directory of software drivers as well as a system.h header file, system initialization source code and other software infrastructure.
The software project provided in this lab does not make use of an operating system. All stdout, stdin and stderr messages will be directed to the jtag_uart.
In addition to the board support package settings configured using the BSP Editor, there are other compilation settings managed by the Eclipse environment such as compiler flags and optimization level.
In Windows Explorer locate the project directory which contains a directory called Software. In Windows Explorer select all the files and directories from the Software folder and drag and drop them into the Eclipse software project ADIEvalBoard.
Just as you configured the optimization level for the BSP project, you should set the optimization level for the application software project ADIEvalBoard as well.
Application code can be conveniently organized in a directory structure. This section shows how to define these paths in the makefile.
These 2 steps will compile and build the associated board support package, then the actual application software project itself. The result of the compilation process will be an Executable and Linked Format (.elf) file for the application, the ADIEvalBoard.elf file.
The BeMicroSDK hardware is designed with a System ID peripheral. This peripheral is assigned a unique value based on when the hardware design was last modified in the SOPC Builder tool. SOPC Builder also places this information in the .sopcinfo hardware description file. The BSP is built based on the information in the .sopcinfo file.
To run the software project on the Nios II processor:
This will re-build the software project to create an up–to-date executable and then download the code into memory on the BeMicroSDK hardware. The debugger resets the Nios II processor, and it executes the downloaded code. Note that the code is verified in memory before it is executed.
The code size and start address might be different than the ones displayed in the above screenshot.
This section presents the UART Terminal Interface, which helps the user to interact with the software application, that will run on the BeMicroSDK. The UART Terminal Interface can be started in two different way. First from Nios II command shell, by using the programm_fpga.sh script (for quick evolution) or from Nios II IDE after programming the BeMicroSDK.
Note: When using the standalone nios2-terminal for interfacing with the AD5755, it might happen that no characters are echoed from the console, and the backspace are ignored. In this case should be used the Nios II Terminal Console windows from the Nios II IDE to evaluate the device.
If the nios2-terminal connected to the device the message AD5755 OK should appear at the Nios II Console.
By using the command help?, can list out all the available commands for the current device, with a small description containing indications how to use them.
The AD5755 support the following commands, which can used to evaluate the AD5755 converter:
Command | Description |
---|---|
help? | Display all available commands |
register? | Get register value for a specified channel, the command has two arguments: register address and channel |
register= | Set a register value, the command has four arguments: register type, which can be data or control, register address, channel number and the desired value |
power? | Display the power state of the dc-to-dc converters, DAC and internal amplifiers for the selected channel. The command has one argument : channel |
power= | Set up the power state of the dc-to-dc converters, DAC and internal amplifiers for the selected channel. The command has two arguments: channel and 1 for ON and 0 for OFF |
range? | Display the range of the selected channel. The command has one argument : channel |
range= | Set the range of the selected channel. Has two argument: channel and range |
voltage? | Display the output voltage of a specified channel. The command has one argument: channel |
voltage= | Set the output voltage of a specified channel. The command using two arguments: channel and the desired value |
current? | Display the output current of a specified channel. The command has one argument: channel |
current= | Set the output current of a specified channel. The command using two arguments: channel and the desired value |