Programming an FPGA Board with the Analog Discovery Pro (ADP3450/ADP3250)

There might be cases when you need to provide a complex stimulus to a circuit, or you might want to condition digital signals before measurement, in both cases using an FPGA board can be handy. However, FPGA boards are usually configured from a PC, so including them in a standalone measurement system might not have been an option until now.

This guide walks you through the steps required to use the Analog Discovery Pro to load a previously-created bit file to your Digilent FPGA board.

Inventory

Hardware

Software

You will also need a bit file to load onto the FPGA board.

Installing the Adept Utilities

Download and copy the Adept Utilities to the USB flash drive. Select Linux ARM-Raspberry Pi as the operating system.

Copy your bit file to the USB flash drive as well, then insert the drive into the back of the Analog Discovery Pro.

Open the terminal emulator on your PC and connect to the ADP. Find the USB device path. It should look like /dev/sd<drive letter><partition number>. This guide will use /dev/sda1 in its text and images, and care must be taken to match the drive letter and partition number of your USB drive. 

sudo fdisk -l

Make the drive contents accessible by entering the following command: 

sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

Navigate to the USB's directory: 

cd /mnt

Now install the Adept Utilities with: 

sudo dpkg -i digilent.adept.utilities_2.4.1-armhf.deb

Don't forget to change the name of the file according to the downloaded program version.

Loading the Bit File

Plug your Digilent FPGA board's USB programming port (typically labeled PROG) into the back of the Analog Discovery Pro, then list the available devices by typing the following command: 

djtgcfg enum

Find the programmable JTAG devices (FPGA chip) by typing: 

djtgcfg init -d <DeviceName>

Don't forget to change the device name according to your board. In this case, the device name is CmodS6.

In this case, there is only one programmable chip, with index 0. If your board contains more JTAG devices, note the index of the one you want to upload the bit file to.

Finally program your board by typing: 

djtgcfg prog -d <DeviceName> -i <index> -f <FileName>

Don't forget to change the device name, scan chain index and the file name according to your board and bit file.

Next Steps

For more guides and example projects for the Analog Discovery Pro, check out its Resource Center.

For technical support, please visit the Digilent Forum.