Using I/O on Digilent FPGA/SoC Boards With LabVIEW LINX Toolkit

Introduction

This guide will walk you through the process of deploying LabVIEW code to Digilent embedded targets for interacting with device peripherals and I/O, including digital, analog, SPI, I2C and UART. The following Digilent boards can be used with this guide:

  • Arty Z7-10
  • Arty Z7-20
  • Cora Z7-07S
  • Cora Z7-10

The LabVIEW LINX Toolkit adds support for Arduino, Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone embedded platforms. The Raspberry Pi provider is used to interact with the Digilent boards listed above.

Prerequisites

Hardware

  • Arty Z7-10 / Arty Z7-20 / Cora Z7-07S / Cora Z7-10 board
  • Micro USB Cable
    • for UART communication
  • SD card with a minimum capacity of 1GB storage
  • Ethernet cord

Software

Creating The Bootable MicroSD Card

On the microSD card, copy into the root directory the files BOOT.BIN and image.ub from the folder of the board you are using.

Eject the microSD card and insert it into the slot on the board.

Connect the Ethernet cable between your board and the router. Attach the microUSB cable between your PC and the board.

Open Tera Term and connect to the serial port of the board with 115200 baud rate, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit.

On the first boot, the root partition on the SD card will automatically resize to make full use of its capacity. A reboot will follow.

Setup The Environment

Log in with the following: 

Username: linx
Password: linx

Library setup

Out of the box, the environment is configured for the Arty Z7-20. If you are using one of the other boards, run the following commands: 

cd /srv/chroot/labview/usr/lib/
sudo ln -s --force <BOARD SO FILE> liblinxdevice.so

Where <BOARD SO FILE> is:

  • liblinxdevice_az710.so for Arty Z7-10
  • liblinxdevice_cz707s.so for Cora Z7-07S
  • liblinxdevice_cz710.so for Cora Z7-10

Verify the symbolic link is set correctly: 

ls-l liblinxdevice.so

If you pointed the symbolic link to a different library, restart the LabVIEW service: 

sudo systemctl restart labview.service

Find out the IP address using the command: 

ip a

Running The LabVIEW Demo

Unzip digilent_demo_labview_vi_files.zip.

Open NI LabVIEW 2020 and Create Project → Blank Project.

Right-click on project name → New → Targets and Devices.

Select New target or device → LINX → Raspberry PI 2 B.

A Raspberry Pi 2 B target will be added to your project. You can add as many targets as you want to the project.

NOTE: In this guide, the existent Raspberry Pi provider is used to interact with the Digilent boards listed above.

Right-click on Raspberry Pi 2 B → Properties and change the name and the IP address according to the board you are using.

Go to Conditional Disable Symbols and change the LINX DEVICE FAMILY and LINX DEVICE ID.

  • LINX DEVICE FAMILY=7 LINX DEVICE ID=11 for Arty Z7-10
  • LINX DEVICE FAMILY=7 LINX DEVICE ID=20 for Arty Z7-20
  • LINX DEVICE FAMILY=7 LINX DEVICE ID=7 for Cora Z7-07S
  • LINX DEVICE FAMILY=7 LINX DEVICE ID=10 for Cora Z7-10

Right-click on target name → Add → File and select the Demo_<name-of-Digilent-board_>.vi from the location you extracted the Digilent_Demo_LabVIEW_VI_files.zip.

Right-click on target name → Connect.

Wait for the deployment to complete.

Open Demo_<name-of-Digilent-board_>.vi and click the RUN button. Wait for the deployment to complete.

You can access the board I/O from the interface.

NOTE: In this demo:

  • IO0-13, IO26-I042, JB1-JB10, JA1-JA9 and LD0-LD3 are output channels (DO Channels)
  • SW0-SW1 and BTN0-BTN3 are input channels (DI Channels)
  • There is one channel for SPI, one for I2C and one for UART (Channel 0).
  • The demo is configured to read over SPI or I2C protocol and to read/write over UART protocol.
  • The SPI is configured to read one byte by sending a multibyte structure (3 bytes) wherein the first byte is a command, the second byte is the SPI Register Address and the third byte is 0x00. The user must adapt the block diagram of the Demo_<name-of-Digilent-board_>.vi for the SPI device that is using.
  • The A6-A7 differential channel is a unipolar channel and A8-A9, A10-A11 and V_P – V_N are bipolar channels. Please read the XADC User Guide (UG480), Page 31 for more information.

Digilent Boards Pinout

Below you can find the pinout for each board to use it with LabVIEW 2020. This pinout was created to use it specifically with LabVIEW LINX Toolkit and is only compatible with LabVIEW libraries which can be found inside /srv/chroot/labview/usr/lib:

  • liblinxdevice_az710.so for Arty Z7-10
  • liblinxdevice_az720.so for Arty Z7-20
  • liblinxdevice_cz707s.so for Cora Z7-07S
  • liblinxdevice_cz710.so for Cora Z7-10
Arty Z7-10 Pinout
NOTE: The Arty Z7-10 board is compatible only with the liblinxdevice_az710.so library.
  • Shield Connector Pinout

Figure 1. Shield Pin Diagram. Figure 1. Shield Pin Diagram.

NOTE: IO26-IO41 and A (IO42) are not accessible on the Arty Z7-10.

Channel / Pin Number Pin Name Function
Digital Input/Output channels
0 IO0 Arty Z7-10 General purpose I/O pins
1 IO1
2 IO2
3 IO3
4 IO4
5 IO5
6 IO6
7 IO7
8 IO8
9 IO9
10 IO10
11 IO11
12 IO12
13 IO13
Channel 0 SCL I2C Clock
SDA I2C Data
Channel 0 SCLK SPI Clock. SPI Supported Speeds [Hz]: 7629, 15200, 30500, 61000, 100000.
MOSI SPI Data out
MISO SPI Data in
38 SS SPI Slave Select
Analog Input channels
0 A0 Single-Ended Analog Unipolar Inputs (range of 0V-3.3V). Arty Z7 uses an external circuit to scale down the input voltage from 0V-3.3V to an input range of 0V to 1V. (see UG480 - Unipolar Input Signals)
1 A1
2 A2
3 A3
4 A4
5 A5
67 A6p-A7n UNIPOLAR Differential Analog Inputs (see UG480 - Bipolar Input Signals)
89 A8p-A9n BIPOLAR
111 A10p-A11n BIPOLAR
101 V_P-V_N BIPOLAR
  • Pmod Connectors Pinout

Figure 2. Pmod JA Pin Diagram Figure 2. Pmod JA Pin Diagram.

Figure 3. Pmod JB Pin Diagram Figure 3. Pmod JB Pin Diagram.

Channel / Pin Number Pin Name Function
24 JA1 Pmod JA General purpose I/O pins
25 JA2
26 JA3
27 JA7
28 JA8
29 JA9
Channel 0 JA4 UART RX UART Supported Baud Rates [bit/s]: 0, 50, 75, 110, 134, 150, 200, 300, 600, 1200, 1800, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200.
JA10 UART TX
30 JB1 Pmod JB General purpose I/O pins
31 JB2
32 JB3
33 JB4
34 JB7
35 JB8
36 JB9
37 JB10
  • Push-Buttons Pinout
Push-Button Pin Number Pin Name
20 BTN0
21 BTN1
22 BTN2
23 BTN3
  • LEDs Pinout
LED Pin Number Pin Name
16 LED0
17 LED1
18 LED2
19 LED3
  • Slide Switches Pinout
Slide Switch Pin Number Pin Name
14 SW0
15 SW1
  • RGB LEDs Pinout
File Function
/dev/led0 RGB LED LD4. Write to /dev/led0 a hexadecimal number: 0xRRGGBB
/dev/led1 RGB LED LD5. Write to /dev/led1 a hexadecimal number: 0xRRGGBB
Arty Z7-20 Pinout
NOTE: The Arty Z7-20 board is compatible only with the liblinxdevice_az720.so library.
  • Shield Connector Pinout

Figure 1. Shield Pin Diagram. Figure 1. Shield Pin Diagram.

Channel / Pin Number Pin Name Function
Digital Input/Output channels
0 IO0 Arty Z7-20 General purpose I/O pins
1 IO1
2 IO2
3 IO3
4 IO4
5 IO5
6 IO6
7 IO7
8 IO8
9 IO9
10 IO10
11 IO11
12 IO12
13 IO13
26 IO26
27 IO27
28 IO28
29 IO29
30 IO30
31 IO31
32 IO32
33 IO33
34 IO34
35 IO35
36 IO36
37 IO37
38 IO38
39 IO39
40 IO40
41 IO41
25 A (IO42)
Channel 0 SCL I2C Clock
SDA I2C Data
Channel 0 SCLK SPI Clock. SPI Supported Speeds [Hz]: 7629, 15200, 30500, 61000, 100000.
MOSI SPI Data out
MISO SPI Data in
24 SS SPI Slave Select
Analog Input channels
0 A0 Single-Ended Analog Unipolar Inputs (range of 0V-3.3V). Arty Z7 uses an external circuit to scale down the input voltage from 0V-3.3V to an input range of 0V to 1V. (see UG480 - Unipolar Input Signals)
1 A1
2 A2
3 A3
4 A4
5 A5
67 A6p-A7n UNIPOLAR Differential Analog Inputs (see UG480 - Bipolar Input Signals)
89 A8p-A9n BIPOLAR
111 A10p-A11n BIPOLAR
101 V_P-V_N BIPOLAR
  • Pmod Connectors Pinout

Figure 2. Pmod JA Pin Diagram Figure 2. Pmod JA Pin Diagram.

Figure 3. Pmod JB Pin Diagram Figure 3. Pmod JB Pin Diagram.

Channel / Pin Number Pin Name Function
42 JA1 Pmod JA General purpose I/O pins
43 JA2
44 JA3
45 JA7
46 JA8
47 JA9
Channel 0 JA4 UART RX UART Supported Baud Rates [bit/s]: 0, 50, 75, 110, 134, 150, 200, 300, 600, 1200, 1800, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200.
JA10 UART TX
48 JB1 Pmod JB General purpose I/O pins
49 JB2
50 JB3
51 JB4
52 JB7
53 JB8
54 JB9
55 JB10
  • Push-Buttons Pinout
Push-Button Pin Number Pin Name
14 BTN0
15 BTN1
16 BTN2
17 BTN3
  • LEDs Pinout
LED Pin Number Pin Name
18 LED0
19 LED1
20 LED2
21 LED3
  • Slide Switches Pinout
Slide Switch Pin Number Pin Name
22 SW0
23 SW1
  • RGB LEDs Pinout
File Function
/dev/led0 RGB LED LD4. Write to /dev/led0 a hexadecimal number: 0xRRGGBB
/dev/led1 RGB LED LD5. Write to /dev/led1 a hexadecimal number: 0xRRGGBB
Cora Z7-10 and Cora Z7-07S Pinout
The Cora Z7-07S board pinout is the same as the Cora Z7-10 board pinout. The only difference between Cora Z7-10 and Cora Z7-07S is the capability of the Zynq part.

NOTE: The Cora Z7-10 board is compatible only with the liblinxdevice_cz710.so library.

NOTE: The Cora Z7-07S board is compatible only with the liblinxdevice_cz707s.so library.

  • Shield Connector Pinout

Figure 1. Shield Pin Diagram. Figure 1. Shield Pin Diagram.

Channel / Pin Number Pin Name Function
Digital Input/Output channels
0 IO0 Cora Z7 General purpose I/O pins
1 IO1
2 IO2
3 IO3
4 IO4
5 IO5
6 IO6
7 IO7
8 IO8
9 IO9
10 IO10
11 IO11
12 IO12
13 IO13
26 IO26
27 IO27
28 IO28
29 IO29
30 IO30
31 IO31
32 IO32
33 IO33
34 IO34
35 IO35
36 IO36
37 IO37
38 IO38
39 IO39
40 IO40
41 IO41
25 A (IO42)
Channel 0 SCL I2C Clock
SDA I2C Data
Channel 0 SCLK SPI Clock. SPI Supported Speeds [Hz]: 7629, 15200, 30500, 61000, 100000.
MOSI SPI Data out
MISO SPI Data in
24 SS SPI Slave Select
Analog Input channels
0 A0 Single-Ended Analog Unipolar Inputs (range of 0V-3.3V). Cora Z7 uses an external circuit to scale down the input voltage from 0V-3.3V to an input range of 0V to 1V. (see UG480 - Unipolar Input Signals)
1 A1
2 A2
3 A3
4 A4
5 A5
67 A6p-A7n UNIPOLAR Differential Analog Inputs (see UG480 - Bipolar Input Signals)
89 A8p-A9n BIPOLAR
111 A10p-A11n BIPOLAR
101 V_P-V_N BIPOLAR
  • Unloaded Expansion Header Pinout

Figure 2. Unloaded Expansion Header Pin Diagram. Figure 2. Unloaded Expansion Header Pin Diagram.

Pin Number Pin Name Function
48 IO2 Unloaded Expansion Header General purpose I/O pins
49 IO3
50 IO4
51 IO5
52 IO6
53 IO7
54 IO8
55 IO9
56 IO10
57 IO11
58 IO12
59 IO13
  • Pmod Connectors Pinout

Figure 2. Pmod JA Pin Diagram Figure 2. Pmod JA Pin Diagram.

Figure 3. Pmod JB Pin Diagram Figure 3. Pmod JB Pin Diagram.

Channel / Pin Number Pin Name Function
42 JA1 Pmod JA General purpose I/O pins
43 JA2
44 JA3
45 JA7
46 JA8
47 JA9
Channel 0 JA4 UART RX UART Supported Baud Rates [bit/s]: 0, 50, 75, 110, 134, 150, 200, 300, 600, 1200, 1800, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200.
JA10 UART TX
16 JB1 Pmod JB General purpose I/O pins
17 JB2
18 JB3
19 JB4
20 JB7
21 JB8
22 JB9
23 JB10
  • Push-Buttons Pinout
Push-Button Pin Number Pin Name
14 BTN0
15 BTN1
  • RGB LEDs Pinout
File Function
/dev/led0 RGB LED LD0. Write to /dev/led0 a hexadecimal number: 0xRRGGBB
/dev/led1 RGB LED LD1. Write to /dev/led1 a hexadecimal number: 0xRRGGBB