This project demonstrates how to stream data in and out of the Nexys A7-100T's RAM. Vivado is used to build the demo's hardware platform, and Xilinx SDK is used to program the bitstream onto the board and to build and deploy a C application.
To use this demo, the Nexys A7-100T must be connected to a computer over MicroUSB, which must be running a serial terminal. For more information on how to set up and use a serial terminal, such as Tera Term or PuTTY, refer to this tutorial.
Review statements printed over USB-UART for more information on how to operate this demo.
Files found at audiocheck.net were used to test the demo.
- This demo is a work in progress, and as such only supports WAV files with 96KHz sample rates. Eight and 16 bit audio is supported, but 16-bit data is truncated down to 8 bits, which may result in poor sound quality.
- Hardware Tone Generation functionality is not currently working.
- Wave files are not stored after playback.
- Nexys A7-100T: To purchase a Nexys A7-100T, see the Digilent Store.
- Vivado 2018.2 Installation with Xilinx SDK: To set up Vivado, see the Installing Vivado and Digilent Board Files Tutorial.
- Serial Terminal Emulator:
- MicroUSB Cable
- Audio cables, headphones, and/or speakers
- Download the most recent release ZIP archive ("Nexys-A7-100T-DMA-Audio-2018.2-*.zip") from the repo's releases page.
- Extract the downloaded ZIP.
- Open the XPR project file, found at <archive extracted location>/vivado_proj/Nexys-A7-100T-DMA-Audio.xpr, included in the extracted release archive in Vivado 2018.2.
- In the toolbar at the top of the Vivado window, select File -> Export -> Export Hardware. Select <Local to Project> as the Exported Location and make sure that the Include bitstream box is checked, then click OK.
- In the toolbar at the top of the Vivado window, select File -> Launch SDK. Select <Local to Project> as both the workspace location and exported location, then click OK.
- With Vivado SDK opened, wait for the hardware platform exported by Vivado to be imported.
- In the toolbar at the top of the SDK window, select File -> New -> Application Project.
- Fill out the fields in the first page of the New Application Project Wizard as in the table below. Most of the listed values will be the wizard's defaults, but are included in the table for completeness.
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Project Name | Nexys-A7-100T-DMA-Audio |
| Use default location | Checked box |
| OS Platform | standalone |
| Target Hardware: Hardware Platform | design_1_wrapper_hw_platform_0 |
| Target Hardware: Processor | (default) |
| Target Software: Language | C |
| Target Software: Board Support Package | Create New (Nexys-A7-100T-DMA-Audio_bsp) |
- Click Next.
- From the list of template applications, select "Empty Application", then click Finish.
- In the Project Explorer pane to the left of the SDK window, expand the new application project (named "Nexys-A7-100T-DMA-Audio").
- Right click on the "src" subdirectory of the application project and select Import.
- In the "Select an import wizard" pane of the window that pops up, expand General and select File System. Then click Next.
- Fill out the fields of the "File system" screen as in the table below. Most of the listed values will be the defaults, but are included in the table for completeness.
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| From directory | <archive extracted location>/sdk_appsrc |
| Files to import pane: sdk_appsrc | Checked box |
| Into folder | Nexys-A7-100T-DMA-Audio/src |
| Options: Overwrite existing resources without warning | Checked box |
| Options: Create top-level folder | Unchecked box |
- Click Finish.
- Open a serial terminal application (such as TeraTerm) and connect it to the Nexys A7-100T's serial port, using a baud rate of 230400.
- In the toolbar at the top of the SDK window, select Xilinx -> Program FPGA. Leave all fields as their defaults and click "Program".
- In the Project Explorer pane, right click on the "Nexys-A7-100T-DMA-Audio" application project and select "Run As -> Launch on Hardware (System Debugger)".
- The application will now be running on the Nexys A7-100T. It can be interacted with as described in the first section of this README.
This demo can be used as a basis for other projects by modifying the hardware platform in the Vivado project's block design or by modifying the SDK application project.
Check out the Nexys A7-100T's Resource Center to find more documentation, demos, and tutorials.
For technical support or questions, please post on the Digilent Forum.
For more information on how this project is version controlled, refer to the digilent-vivado-scripts repo.