ruiii1 / alinx

some files to test the new ALINX AXU2CG-E development board

ALINX Board

Some fpga and software logic to test out the new ALINX AXU2CG-E development board.

http://www.alinx.com/en/index.php/default/content/147.html

http://www.alinx.com/en/index.php/default/content/108.html

Methodology

First, an fpga design was created with Zynq MPSOC system and this was compiled. The resulting XSA file was then used to create a Petalinux boot image that mounts the sd card as a Debian root filesystem.

Features of the the board were then tested using Linux commands, C programs and fpga logic.

Things Tested

- Xilinx XCZU2CG-1SFVC784E MPSOC device
- PS DDR4 memory
- ALINX AL321 USB debug/download cable
- fan PWM control
- PL LED
- eMMC drive
- QSPI boot to Petalinux
- SD card
- PS UART
- PL UART
- PS Ethernet
- 200MHz differential PL clock
- PS I2C board temperature sensor
- M.2 PCIe

Things Not Yet Tested

- PL DDR4 memory (not installed on ACU2G SOM module)
- CAN Bus
- Camera Interface
- Mini-Displayport Interface
- PS LED
- PL Ethernet
- Dual 40 pin expansion connectors
- USB 3.0 hub

Test and Review

After purchase, ALINX provides schematics of the core SOM board and the carrier board as well as a thorough user's guide in English and Chinese. Lacking are Vivado board definition files and Petalinux BSP.

An fpga test design was created with PS peripherals enabled and Petalinux was built using the resulting XSA file.

Xilinx XCZU2CG-1SFVC784E MPSOC

Both the PS and PL sides of the device were used extensively in these tests.

PS DDR4 memory

The 2 GB PS DDR4 memory was used to run Petalinux and some Vitis applications. DDR4 timing was found by selecting a Samsung memory and then adjusting slightly. The settings were not optimized but no problems have been seen.

ALINX AL321 USB debug/download cable

ALINX ships a very fine JTAG debug cable with the development board. The usb cable is bright red which is helpful on a crowded bench covered with black cables. The debug cable enumerates as Digilent logic so ALINX must have licensed it from them. That's good. The cable supports both 14 pin and the older 10 pin connections. We used this cable for all work which included QSPI programming, Vitis SDK and ILA Chipscope.

fan PWM control

We applied a 1KHz 1/8 duty cycle pwm signal to the fan and got a nice quiet fan speed.

PL LED

The PL LED is flashing.

eMMC drive

The eMMC drive was tested by enabling the interface in Vivado and rebuilding Petalinux. That results in /dev/mmcblk0 showing up under Linux. Standard Linux commands were then used to partition, format and mount the drive resulting in:

sudo fdisk /dev/mmcblk0
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/mmcblk0p1
sudo mkdir /mnt/emmc
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/emmc

/dev/mmcblk0p1  7.2G   33M  6.7G   1% /mnt/emmc

Write speed:

pedro@linaro-developer:~$ time sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0p1 bs=2M count=1000 1000+0 records in 1000+0 records out 2097152000 bytes (2.1 GB, 2.0 GiB) copied, 21.6952 s, 96.7 MB/s

Read speed:

pedro@linaro-developer:~$ time sudo dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=/dev/null bs=2M count=1000 mmcblk0 mmcblk0boot0 mmcblk0boot1 mmcblk0p1 mmcblk0rpmb
pedro@linaro-developer:~$ time sudo dd if=/dev/mmcblk0p1 of=/dev/null bs=2M count=1000 1000+0 records in 1000+0 records out 2097152000 bytes (2.1 GB, 2.0 GiB) copied, 22.6514 s, 92.6 MB/s

QSPI boot to Petalinux

The QSPI was programed to boot Petalinux to ram filesystem from powerup.

SD card boot

The boot mode lines on the SOM were set to sd card. An sd card was created to boot Petalinux to a Debian file system on the sd card. See instructions under petalinux folder.

Write speed:

pedro@linaro-developer:~$ time sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=~/ddtarget bs=2M count=1000 1000+0 records in 1000+0 records out 2097152000 bytes (2.1 GB, 2.0 GiB) copied, 82.182 s, 25.5 MB/s

Read speed:

pedro@linaro-developer:~$ time sudo dd if=~/ddtarget of=/dev/null bs=2M count=1000 1000+0 records in 1000+0 records out 2097152000 bytes (2.1 GB, 2.0 GiB) copied, 87.5167 s, 24.0 MB/s

PS UART

The PS uart was enabled in Vivado and used as the Petalinux boot console and to print from Vitis applications.

PL UART

A Vitis application was built using the axi_uartlite_0 device in the PL. The interface works.

PS Ethernet

The GEM3 ethernet MAC of the PS was enabled and Petalinux automatically connects to the network. User control was then done using ssh. A minimal Apache2 web server was demonstrated.

200MHz differential PL clock

The 200MHz differential clock is used in the fpga design to run a counter that was observed with an ILA debug core.

PS I2C board temperature sensor

The I2C bus to the onboard temperature sensor was enabled in Vivado. Petalinux was rebuilt with new XSA file. The temperature sensor was accessed using the linux driver, i2c-tools and a little linux program. See apps/i2c_test.

M.2 PCIe

An nvme ssd was installed in the M.2 slot of the carrier board. Vivado ZynqMP adjustments were made and the fpga recompiled. Petalinux kernel configurations were set to support nVME drive as block device. Standard linux commands were used to partition, format and mount the drive.

sudo fdisk /dev/nvme0n1
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p1 
sudo mkdir /mnt/nvme
sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/nvme/

/dev/nvme0n1p1 ext4      234G   60M  222G   1% /mnt/nvme

Write speed:

pedro@linaro-developer:~$ time sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/nvme0n1p1 bs=2M count=1000 1000+0 records in 1000+0 records out 2097152000 bytes (2.1 GB, 2.0 GiB) copied, 6.54003 s, 321 MB/s

Read speed:

pedro@linaro-developer:~$ time sudo dd if=/dev/nvme0n1p1 of=/dev/null bs=2M count=1000 1000+0 records in 1000+0 records out 2097152000 bytes (2.1 GB, 2.0 GiB) copied, 5.42412 s, 387 MB/s