Using Gowin IDE on ubuntu 22.04

 Need to install QT

   sudo apt install -y qtcreator qtbase5-dev qt5-qmake cmake

Open terminal and use

cd <to where the gowin tools are>

there should be a bin and library dir then

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PWD/lib

cd bin

./gw_ide

Raspberry PI Zero freeing up serial port /dev/ttyAMA0 for

The Pi Zeros only have two serial ports, only one can be mapped to the GPIO pin header at a time.  So, how to free up the serial port for a user/app to use?

This is for a buildroot generated file system.

The edit cmdline.txt:

root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootwait console=tty1 console=ttyAMA0,115200

remove console=ttyAMA,115200

so it looks like this:

root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootwait console=tty1

next edit /etc/inittab to start a tty shell

add this line at the bottom of the file:

ttyGS0::respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyGS0 115200 vt100

edit config.txt 

add dtoverlay=dwc2 

This will start the OTG USB driver. 

I did something simple, edit S40network add:

     modprobe dwc2

      modprobe g_serial

This will start the serial interface.  A new serial interface will be created /dev/ttyGS0  

I'm using a Linux PC, so, when the USB is plugged in Zero will create a serial connection to Linux PC over USB OTG.  Then use minicom --dev /dev/ttyACM0 

Sipeed M1S Dock Hello world how to

 Sipeed is selling a M1s Dock at several places pricing is around $13USD.  The main processor, has uses the BL808 which has 3 processors:

1. RISC-V 64 bit RV64IMAFCV (D0)
• Uses serial pins
   
2. RISC-V 32 bit RV32IMAFCP (M0)
• /dev/ttyUSB1
  
3. RISC-V 32 bit  RV32EMC (LP)
• (Have not tested)
  

SPI slave as a Wishbone master for offloading Pi Zero Flight controller (BaseFlight)

(This is still work in progress but wanted to publish it and keep working on it)

 The Raspberry PI zero has a good price performance ratio, the 2W even better.  I have been working on porting BaseFlight (Flight controller software for STM32 micro-controller) to Linux running on the PI.  The code is working with a MPU9250.  

The hardware will be a PI Zero or a PI Zero 2W (Still need one),  SPI0.0 to the IMU, the SPI0.1 connected to the FPGA.   The FPGA will create the signals needed for OneShot, decode 6 channels of PWM  (I have an old Transmitter that supports 6 channels of PWM), and LED controller.  

Will be using the CS7Mod, its small, has 4 LEDs and 1 RGB.  LEDS will be used for status indication for BaseFlight.

So, what will be the communication protocol over SPI?  Simple Wishbone bus instructions, Read/Write using address and data.  

The WishBone master is interface to the SPI Slave, so the PI Zero will be the master.  Here is commands for a read and write

• Command string
• 1 byte command, either Read/Write
• 4 byte address Highest address first  (Big Endian)
• 2 byte length: first byte is the highest followed by the lowest
• 4 bytes of data, first byte is the lowest byte.  (Little endian)
• Read: example using command line: 
  • printf '\xA1\x1\x2\x3\x0\x0\x4\xf\x00\x00\x0\x0' | spi-pipe -m 0 -s 1000000 -d /dev/spidev0.1 | hexdump -C
• Wite: 
• printf '\xA2\x1\x2\x3\x0\x0\x4\xf\xff\xff\x11\0' | spi-pipe -m 0 -s 1000000 -d /dev/spidev0.1 | hexdump -C

The reason for using a Wishbone bus:

1. Simple
2. Use existing code for Wishbone Master 
3. Easy to test
4. Extendable (More on that later)

Right now, there are 3 wishbone peripherals

1. LED controller
1. address 0: set 32 bit register
2. address 4: xor 32 bit register (blink)
3. address 8: clear 32 bit register
2. PWM decoder 
1. 6 32 bit registers.  
3. One Shot generator
1. 4 32 bit registers

Here is screen shot of vivado, this is only for LED controller:

Using asyncio with libgpiod on an OrangePI Zero

 Python is a great tool to create simple/fast test code, combine that with libgpiod, now you can toggle and monitor gpio pins.  

In recent Linux kernels libgpiod is a library to write C/C++ and Python to toggle and monitor general purpose pins.   There are plenty examples for python.  I use buildroot to create a Linux distro, one option under hardware is to install libgpiod and if you have python3 selected now you can write python scripts. 

Here is two basic classes gpiowrapper.py:

import gpiod

import threading

import asyncio

import logging

class OutputPin:

def __init__(self, chip ="gpiochip0", pin = 0):

logging.debug("args chip={0} pin={1}".format(chip, pin))

self.chip = gpiod.Chip(chip)

if self.chip is None:

logging.error("chip not found")

else:

logging.debug("type {0} {1}".format(type(self.chip), type(pin)))

self.line = self.chip.get_line(pin)

self.line.request(consumer=chip, type=gpiod.LINE_REQ_DIR_OUT)

def set_level(self, level=0):

if level:

self.line.set_value(1)

else:

self.line.set_value(0)

class EventPin:

def __init__(self, chip = "gpiochip0", pin=0 ):

try:

self._pin = pin

self.chip = gpiod.Chip(chip)

if self.chip is None:

logging.error("chip not found")

else:

logging.debug("type {0} {1}".format(type(self.chip), type(pin)))

self.line = self.chip.get_line(pin)

self.line.request(consumer=chip, type=gpiod.LINE_REQ_EV_RISING_EDGE)

self.on_wait = asyncio.Queue()

asyncio.get_running_loop().add_reader( self.line.event_get_fd(), self.event_cb)

except Exception as ex:

logging.error("Error: {0}".format(str(ex)))

def event_cb(self):

event = self.line.event_read()

if event.type == gpiod.LineEvent.RISING_EDGE:

evstr = ' RISING EDGE'

elif event.type == gpiod.LineEvent.FALLING_EDGE:

evstr = 'FALLING EDGE'

else:

raise TypeError('Invalid event type')

logging.debug(" event {0}".format(evstr))

self.on_wait.put_nowait(event.type)

async def wait(self):

await self.on_wait.get()

 

The EventPin class can be used with asyncio to wait for Edge Triggered GPIO.  The key line is adding file descriptor of the event pin to asyncio and perform a callback when the FD is changes and push the event into a queue so await can be used. 

Here is a simple blink.py:

import gpiod

import sys

import time

import argparse

import gpiowrapper

import asyncio

import logging

async def blink(io_chip, o_pin):

logging.debug("blink")

pin = gpiowrapper.OutputPin(chip=io_chip, pin=int(o_pin))

while True:

pin.set_level(0)

await asyncio.sleep(0.1)

pin.set_level(1)

await asyncio.sleep(0.1)

async def toggleTask( o_pin, timeout):

try:

while True:

o_pin.set_level(0)

await asyncio.sleep(timeout)

o_pin.set_level(1)

await asyncio.sleep(timeout)

except Exception as ex:

logging.error("error {0}".format(str(ex)))

async def monitor_event(io_chip, output_pin, event_pin):

o_pin = gpiowrapper.OutputPin(io_chip, output_pin)

evt_pin = gpiowrapper.EventPin(io_chip, event_pin)

toggle_task = asyncio.create_task(toggleTask(o_pin, .5))

while True:

val = await evt_pin.wait()

if val == gpiod.LineEvent.RISING_EDGE:

logging.debug("Rising edge event")

elif val == gpiod.LineEvent.FALLING_EDGE:

logging.debug("Falling edge event")

if __name__ == "__main__":

logging.basicConfig(format='%(asctime)s %(levelname)s %(filename)s:%(lineno)s - %(funcName)20s() %(message)s', level=logging.DEBUG)

# execute only if run as a script

# Create the parser

my_parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='List the content of a folder')

# Add the arguments

my_parser.add_argument('-chip', help='chip ')

my_parser.add_argument('-opin', type=int, help='output pin')

my_parser.add_argument('--epin', type=int, help='event pin')

my_parser.add_argument('--blink', help='event pin')

my_parser.add_argument('--event', help='event pin')

# Execute the parse_args() method

args = my_parser.parse_args()

logging.debug("main")

if args.blink:

logging.debug("run blink")

asyncio.run(blink( args.chip, args.opin))

if args.event:

logging.debug("monitor")

asyncio.run(monitor_event(args.chip, args.opin, args.epin))

 

Load both files onto the Orange PI Zero. 

python blink.py -chip gpiochip0 -opin 1 --epin 0 --event True

This will use  PIN11 (GPIO1) for output and toggle at 1 second.  Pin13 will wait for Rising Edge trigger.  If you connect both pins together then you will get:

# python blink.py -chip gpiochip0 -opin 1 --epin 0 --event True
1970-01-01 00:47:21,419 DEBUG blink.py:60 -             <module>() main
1970-01-01 00:47:21,420 DEBUG blink.py:66 -             <module>() monitor
1970-01-01 00:47:21,421 DEBUG selector_events.py:59 -             __init__() Using selector: EpollSelector
1970-01-01 00:47:21,424 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:10 -             __init__() args chip=gpiochip0 pin=1
1970-01-01 00:47:21,558 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:16 -             __init__() type <class 'gpiod.Chip'> <class 'int'>
1970-01-01 00:47:21,648 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:36 -             __init__() type <class 'gpiod.Chip'> <class 'int'>
1970-01-01 00:47:22,153 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:23,156 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:24,159 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:25,161 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:26,164 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:27,167 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:28,170 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:29,172 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:30,175 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:31,178 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:32,180 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:33,183 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:34,186 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:35,188 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:36,191 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:37,194 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:38,197 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:39,199 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:40,202 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:41,205 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1970-01-01 00:47:42,207 DEBUG gpiowrapper.py:57 -             event_cb()  event  RISING EDGE
1

Using FPGA to accelerate serial protocol handling adding two AXI Stream blocks.

 I have been working on communication protocol to the CMOD-S7 and CYC1000 via the FTDI over USB.  One of the issues is round-trip-time.  Currently the packet handling is done all by the MicroBlaze.  There are to basic packet handling duties the Microblaze performs in the RX/TX data path:

• Stripping or adding ESC formatting.  This loosely follows SLIP/PPP serial encoding.  
• Calculating CCITT CRC-16

 So, to lower the round trip time, I have been working on two independent AXI Stream blocks:

1. 16 bit CRC, will calculate the CRC per byte when TLAST is raised append the two bytes.
2. Packet format: add SOP (start of packet byte), ESC any bytes that are SOP,EOP, or ESC and add EOP when TLAST is raised. 

Using just the MicroBlaze, the ping rate is 1.7Mpbs, adding the two AXI stream pushes the rate to 2.7Mbps.

 

Here is a block diagram from vivado.

 The next goal is to eliminate the MicroBlaze processor and add a AXI switch.  The serial protocol has a ToPort, this will be used for the AXI Stream ID.  

This project take some time, the goal is to push the data rate to 12Mbps, maybe add the ADC and temperature sensor, to also push data via AXI stream.

Using AXI stream with DMA on a CMOD-S7 FPGA board

After a several weeks of tweaking, DMA driver and Verilog, AXI Stream serial TX/RX using DMA with the MicroBlaze soft core is working.

Over the past several months I have been using Fast Serial mode with FTDI, but it is only half duplex, if the PC and FPGA try to send messages at the same time, the FTDI chip does some weird things depending on the state if the FDSI and FSDO, worked with tech support, "should only be used with a half duplex protocol".  

So, back to standard serial, the FTDI serial interface can support 12Mbps in full duplex, so, it is possible to have the FPGA  and PC send async messages.  So, how to get 12 Mpbs to the Spartan 7?

Created a axis_serial RTL (In verilog) that can stream TX/RX bytes out to the FTDI chip at 12Mpbs.   This is a real simple block, used serial code from Nandland with a AXI stream wrapper. Also this wrapper looks at the incoming bytes from the serial and will raise TLAST for EOP (End of packet) byte.  TLAST is connected to the DMA block and this will terminate the DMA and the RX buffer is now filled with a packet.  

The DMA driver is packet based, i.e. like Ethernet LWIP example, but in this case it is using a serial stream. This way the microbalze is not processing serial interrupts per byte, but, interrupt per packet.  

Configured the clock to be 120Mhz, the current "ping rate" is 1.7Mpbs in one direction, or 3.4Mpbs full duplex.  I'm working on offloading the CRC and packet ESC packing to the FPGA.  CRC is done, Packing is taking some time.  This will be in the TX direction for now, so, the rate should increase to 3.4Mbps in TX direction.

All of the code is in gitub.