{"id":12487,"date":"2016-02-23T09:15:23","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T17:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.digilentinc.com\/?p=12487"},"modified":"2021-06-16T14:23:58","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T21:23:58","slug":"using-the-analog-discovery-to-debug-logic-circuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/using-the-analog-discovery-to-debug-logic-circuits\/","title":{"rendered":"Using the Analog Discovery To Debug Logic Circuits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week,\u00a0Bobby shared his experiences getting back into FPGAs<\/a>. Having once been\u00a0a beginner with FPGAs and then being a TA in an intro to FPGA class, I can say that this is a pretty common struggle.<\/p>\n

Bobby also shared some of the resources he found helpful, as well as some tips to increase success. After reading his post it occurred to me what helped me immensely throughout my journey,\u00a0a tool I had throughout my entire intro to FPGA class but didn’t realize could have helped me until my second FPGA class, the Analog Discovery<\/a> and Analog Discovery 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Analog<\/a>
The Analog Discovery and Analog Discovery 2.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For an entire year, I had no idea what the Analog Discovery and\u00a0Waveforms 2015<\/a>\u00a0were capable of\u00a0when it comes to digital logic design.<\/p>\n

I quickly recognized\u00a0all the fly-wires (or the pin-out on the Analog Discovery) that I knew from my analog circuits classes. The waveform generators, ground, oscilloscopes, and power supplies — they’re all there! If you look to the right of those, there is a whole set of fly-wires that I wasn’t familiar with. Well, those are the digital inputs.<\/p>\n

\"linout\"<\/a>
The Analog Discovery pin-out diagram. Notice the digital inputs on the right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Waveforms 2015 contains a tool called the logic analyzer. This allows you to view the digital signals being sent out of your FPGA in real time. This way you can see if what you think you are sending, is what you are actually sending.<\/p>\n

Due to an unfortunate combination of illness and procrastination, I had to finish most of my EE324 (Digital Logic Circuits 2) labs in a period of about two weeks. I can tell you, that without the Analog Discovery and Logic Analyzer, I would not have been able to accomplish such a feat.<\/p>\n

About a week or so in, I was in the lab, probably around one in the morning working on my SPI controller. Despite thinking that my SPI controller was working, nothing was coming out of the PmodMIC3<\/a>. Imagine my frustration, and concern. Not a great combination for clear thinking.<\/p>\n

Luckily, one of my friends who\u00a0happened to be in the lab late (it happens more often than you would think) had an Analog Discovery, and suggested that I scope my signals.<\/p>\n

So, I plugged in the Analog Discovery’s digital inputs to MISO, SCLK, and CS. Imagine my shock when I discovered that SCLK wasn’t outputting anything. I probably wouldn’t have discovered this nearly as quickly without seeing the output live.<\/p>\n

I looked back at my code and discovered that I had set SCLK to an input rather than an output. I know, a total “facepalm moment”, but give me a break! it was one in the morning.<\/p>\n

So, I changed that pin to an output, and it worked perfectly! The Analog Discovery’s logic analyzer saved the day.<\/p>\n

\"cover\"<\/a>
A shot from Waveforms 2015 showing the SPI signals.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Imagine how much faster I could have fixed my other projects if I had known all along. I wanted to share this experience with all of you who follow the blog to hopefully save someone else some frustration.<\/p>\n

To learn how to use the logic analyzer, check out my Instructable on using the logic analyzer on the Analog Discovery 2<\/a>. To learn more about the Analog Discovery 2<\/a>\u00a0or Waveforms 2015<\/a> themselves, check out their respective resource centers.<\/p>\n

0<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div>
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<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Making things easier one circuit at a time with the Analog Discovery 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":12514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4325,4323,4312,1563],"tags":[111],"ppma_author":[4466],"class_list":["post-12487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-debug-validation-test","category-software","category-usb-scopes-analyzers-generators","category-guide","tag-analog-discovery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/cover.png","authors":[{"term_id":4466,"user_id":18,"is_guest":0,"slug":"kaitlyn","display_name":"Kaitlyn Franz","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3f16f6159d3666c6fd05a4b73a18c286?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Franz","last_name_2":"","first_name":"Kaitlyn","first_name_2":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12487"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=12487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}