FPGA design from scratch. Part 22
Using the XPS Software Development Kit
It is time to start writing some small programs to be used in our simulations. We will use the Platform Studio Software Devlopment Kit (SDK) to help us out with this task.
The Platform Studio Software Development Kit (SDK) was designed to facilitate the development of embedded software application projects. SDK has its own GUI and is based on the Eclipse open-source tool suite. The Platform Studio SDK is a complementary program to XPS; that is, from SDK, you can develop the software that the peripherals and processor(s) elements connected in XPS use.
You must create an SDK project for each software application. The project directory contains your C/C++ source files, executable output file, and associated utility files, such as the make files used to build the project. Each SDK project directory is typically located under the XPS project directory tree for the embedded system that the application targets. Each SDK project produces just one executable file, <project_name>.elf. Therefore, you may have more than one SDK project targeting a single XPS embedded system.
Software development flow
(Courtesy of Xilinx)
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection (usually shortened to GCC) is a set of programming language compilers produced by the GNU Project.
Executable and Linkage Format file
In computing, the Executable and Linking Format (ELF, formerly called Extensible Linking Format) is a common standard file format for executables, object code, shared libraries, and core dumps
Missing gmake
Warning, on a Debian/Ubuntu machine, you will not have a binary called gmake, but "make" is already "gmake". You need to add a proper symlink: sudo ln -s /usr/bin/make /usr/bin/gmake
Running SDK
We will start SDK from inside the Xilinx Platform Studio. Read the EDK Concepts, Tools, and Techniques Chapter 6, The Software Platform and SDK for more information on how to write embedded software applications. To start SDK directly from the terminal use the command: xps_sdk &
==> xps &
Before we start SDK let's take a look at the software platform settings. From the Software menu select Software Platform Settings.
Starting SDK
From the Software menu select Launch Platform Studio SDK to open SDK.
Let's read the Getting started with the Xilinx Platform Studio SDK before we continue. To display the guide in your web browser click the Getting Started in the Welcome window. We will launch the Application Wizard to help us setup our first software project.
Xilinx Tools->Launch Application Wizard and select Import XPS Application Projects.
Click Next.
Mark the application TestApp_Memory and click Finish.
Creating a new C application project
We give the project a name and then click Finish.
The wizard starts working and after a few seconds the result is displayed. We are ready to write out first c-program.
A new directory called SDK_projects has been created with two projects in it.
Top Next Previous
