[casper] Re: BSP request from INAF

[Adam Isaacson]

Hi SKARAB casperites,

I wanted to add to Jason's question below:

>With the latest libraries, I understand that we should now be able to
compile with that ADC as part of the normal CASPER 'flow. So it should be
>trivial to port CASPER Tutorial #3 (simple spectrometer) to the SKARAB
platform. That might be a good first exercise for INAF. While we don't
>have the capacity to do this for them, we could assist with questions on
the CASPER mailing list.

Heystek Grobler (SARAO) has been tasked with porting the spectrometer
tutorial to the SKARAB platform, so before anyone does anything please
liase with him - he is on the casper list, as you probably already know. I
am hoping we could have this ready for the CASPER conference in August.

Kind regards,

Adam Isaacson
South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)
Hardware Manager
Cell: (+27) 825639602
Tel:  (+27) 215067300
email: aisaac...@ska.ac.za



On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 3:22 PM Adam Isaacson  wrote:

> Hi Alex and SKARAB casperites,
>
> 1) Firstly, I see some references to the old wiki in these threads. I
> suggest go to https://casper.berkeley.edu and then click on "Hardware" (
> https://casper.berkeley.edu/index.php/hardware/). Once you do that click
> on https://github.com/casper-astro/casper-hardware#casper-hardware and
> then select "SKARAB". Please note if you use the old wiki then you will
> have incomplete information. There is a lot of new information on the
> github wiki concerning SKARAB. This will eventually/probably move to to the
> ReadtheDocs platform that Brian Bradford and Jack Hickish has been driving.
> Now to upset the apple cart, the information in the SKARAB github wiki
> needs to be updated - the SKARAB toolflow and BSP is now using Vivado
> 2018.2 and the toolflow models have been ported to Matlab R2018a with
> service pack 6. We have also migrated to Ubuntu 16.04LTS. The latest BSP is
> now version 2.8. This github SKARAB wiki will be updated shortly = watch
> this space!
>
> 2) Thanks Wes, the latest images
> https://github.com/ska-sa/skarab_bsp_images (master). There is a
> difference with the BSP now. It is now generated from the toolflow models
> and we have moved away from the Peralex directory format. The latest BSP is
> generated from the skarab_fgbe.slx model (github:
> https://github.com/ska-sa/mlib_devel/tree/devel/jasper_library/test_models/).
> The BSP is time stamped as well, which makes it easier to track. There are
> two images to load - multiboot and golden image. Please Refer to the SKARAB
> wiki for explanations of the multiboot and golden images. The current BSP
> images are named skarab_fgbe_2019-03-04_1220_multiboot.hex,
> skarab_fgbe_2019-03-04_1312_golden.hex. Wesley has already referenced
> casperfpga below, so I will just explain how to configure the images with
> casperfpga.
>
> I assume you can ping the boards and have installed casperfpga. Open a
> terminal and start an ipython session:
>
> In [1] import casperfpga
> In [2] fpga = casperfpga.Casperfpga('10.0.0.75')
> In [3]
> fpga.transport.virtex_flash_reconfig(filename='skarab_fgbe_2019-03-04_1220_multiboot.hex',
> flash_address=50331648) - for multiboot image
> Out [3]: True
> In [4]
> fpga.transport.virtex_flash_reconfig(filename='skarab_fgbe_2019-03-04_1312_golden.hex',
> flash_address=0x0) - for golden image
> Out [4]: True
> 
> In[5] fpga.transport.get_skarab_version_info()
> Out[5]:
> {'golden_image': False,
>  'microblaze_hardware_version': '2.7',
>  'microblaze_software_version': '3.11.0',
>  'multiboot_image': True,
>  'spartan_firmware_version': '1.6',
>  'toolflow_image': False,
>  'virtex7_firmware_version': '2.8'}
>
> If you read the above versions after power up then it has successfully
> configured the flash with the new multiboot image. Please note that the
> current BSP has no ADC board or HMC board firmware. It still contains the
> 1GbE and single port 40GbE. The documentation will be updated to reflect
> this in due course.
>
> 3) SKARAB ADCs. There are two SKARAB ADC Mezzanine Cards available - one
> with DDC enabled and one with DDC bypassed.There are currently two ADC test
> models: test_skarab_adc.slx (DDC enabled) and test_skarab_adc_by.slx (DDC
> bypassed). You can find out more about these ADC Mezzanine Cards by looking
> at the SKARAB hardware wiki or speaking to Peralex i.e. Alex Bassios or
> Clifford van Dyk. These models work with the python and matlab scripts in
> the "/test_models/scripts/test_skarab_adc" folder. The script basically
> initialises the ADC and captures some samples. The Matlab file allows you
> to plot the captured files. We are in the process of adding this to
> casperfpga and Amish Patel can tell you more on how that is going. I
> believe we are close though. Once complete then we will release that.
>
> Feel free to ask any questions.
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Adam Isaacson
> South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)
> Hardware Manager
> Cell: (+27) 825639602
> Tel:  (+27) 215067300
> email: 

[casper] Re: BSP request from INAF

[Adam Isaacson]

Hi Alex and SKARAB casperites,

1) Firstly, I see some references to the old wiki in these threads. I
suggest go to https://casper.berkeley.edu and then click on "Hardware" (
https://casper.berkeley.edu/index.php/hardware/). Once you do that click on
https://github.com/casper-astro/casper-hardware#casper-hardware and then
select "SKARAB". Please note if you use the old wiki then you will have
incomplete information. There is a lot of new information on the github
wiki concerning SKARAB. This will eventually/probably move to to the
ReadtheDocs platform that Brian Bradford and Jack Hickish has been driving.
Now to upset the apple cart, the information in the SKARAB github wiki
needs to be updated - the SKARAB toolflow and BSP is now using Vivado
2018.2 and the toolflow models have been ported to Matlab R2018a with
service pack 6. We have also migrated to Ubuntu 16.04LTS. The latest BSP is
now version 2.8. This github SKARAB wiki will be updated shortly = watch
this space!

2) Thanks Wes, the latest images
https://github.com/ska-sa/skarab_bsp_images (master). There is a difference
with the BSP now. It is now generated from the toolflow models and we have
moved away from the Peralex directory format. The latest BSP is generated
from the skarab_fgbe.slx model (github:
https://github.com/ska-sa/mlib_devel/tree/devel/jasper_library/test_models/).
The BSP is time stamped as well, which makes it easier to track. There are
two images to load - multiboot and golden image. Please Refer to the SKARAB
wiki for explanations of the multiboot and golden images. The current BSP
images are named skarab_fgbe_2019-03-04_1220_multiboot.hex,
skarab_fgbe_2019-03-04_1312_golden.hex. Wesley has already referenced
casperfpga below, so I will just explain how to configure the images with
casperfpga.

I assume you can ping the boards and have installed casperfpga. Open a
terminal and start an ipython session:

In [1] import casperfpga
In [2] fpga = casperfpga.Casperfpga('10.0.0.75')
In [3]
fpga.transport.virtex_flash_reconfig(filename='skarab_fgbe_2019-03-04_1220_multiboot.hex',
flash_address=50331648) - for multiboot image
Out [3]: True
In [4]
fpga.transport.virtex_flash_reconfig(filename='skarab_fgbe_2019-03-04_1312_golden.hex',
flash_address=0x0) - for golden image
Out [4]: True

In[5] fpga.transport.get_skarab_version_info()
Out[5]:
{'golden_image': False,
 'microblaze_hardware_version': '2.7',
 'microblaze_software_version': '3.11.0',
 'multiboot_image': True,
 'spartan_firmware_version': '1.6',
 'toolflow_image': False,
 'virtex7_firmware_version': '2.8'}

If you read the above versions after power up then it has successfully
configured the flash with the new multiboot image. Please note that the
current BSP has no ADC board or HMC board firmware. It still contains the
1GbE and single port 40GbE. The documentation will be updated to reflect
this in due course.

3) SKARAB ADCs. There are two SKARAB ADC Mezzanine Cards available - one
with DDC enabled and one with DDC bypassed.There are currently two ADC test
models: test_skarab_adc.slx (DDC enabled) and test_skarab_adc_by.slx (DDC
bypassed). You can find out more about these ADC Mezzanine Cards by looking
at the SKARAB hardware wiki or speaking to Peralex i.e. Alex Bassios or
Clifford van Dyk. These models work with the python and matlab scripts in
the "/test_models/scripts/test_skarab_adc" folder. The script basically
initialises the ADC and captures some samples. The Matlab file allows you
to plot the captured files. We are in the process of adding this to
casperfpga and Amish Patel can tell you more on how that is going. I
believe we are close though. Once complete then we will release that.

Feel free to ask any questions.


Kind regards,

Adam Isaacson
South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)
Hardware Manager
Cell: (+27) 825639602
Tel:  (+27) 215067300
email: aisaac...@ska.ac.za



On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 1:41 PM Wesley New  wrote:

> Hi Alex, I have CCed the mailing list so that this information will be out
> in the wild.
>
> Firstly, here is a link to the SKARAB page on the wiki. It has all the
> resources that one would need for the SKARABs.
> https://casper.ssl.berkeley.edu/wiki/SKARAB
>
> To use the CASPER tools, the BSP would need to be upgraded. The latest
> images can be found here. https://github.com/ska-sa/skarab_bsp_images
> Adam will respond with how to upload the new BSP images.
>
> There is are 2 test designs in mlib_devel for the SKARAB ADC at
> https://github.com/ska-sa/mlib_devel/tree/devel/jasper_library/test_models
> .
>
> The Linux control software is built into CASPERFPGA and is in the devel
> branch of the SKA repository here:
> https://github.com/ska-sa/casperfpga/tree/devel There should be a
> function to initialise the ADC. Amish should be able to elaborate here. The
> toolflow will generate the "full" hdl design that can be opened in Vivado
> and perused at ones leisure.
>
> Please let me know if there are any other questions.
>
> Wesley 

[casper] Re: BSP request from INAF

[Wesley New]

Hi Alex, I have CCed the mailing list so that this information will be out
in the wild.

Firstly, here is a link to the SKARAB page on the wiki. It has all the
resources that one would need for the SKARABs.
https://casper.ssl.berkeley.edu/wiki/SKARAB

To use the CASPER tools, the BSP would need to be upgraded. The latest
images can be found here. https://github.com/ska-sa/skarab_bsp_images Adam
will respond with how to upload the new BSP images.

There is are 2 test designs in mlib_devel for the SKARAB ADC at
https://github.com/ska-sa/mlib_devel/tree/devel/jasper_library/test_models.

The Linux control software is built into CASPERFPGA and is in the devel
branch of the SKA repository here:
https://github.com/ska-sa/casperfpga/tree/devel There should be a function
to initialise the ADC. Amish should be able to elaborate here. The toolflow
will generate the "full" hdl design that can be opened in Vivado and
perused at ones leisure.

Please let me know if there are any other questions.

Wesley New
South African SKA Project
+2721 506 7300
www.ska.ac.za




On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 12:06 PM Alex Bassios  wrote:

> Hi Adam/Jason/Wesley
>
>
>
> Andrea Melis from INAF has bought a SKARAB and ADC.
>
>
>
> See below.
>
>
>
> It is probably best that Andrea Melis and INAF stay inside the CASPER tool
> flow.  Is there something SARAO can send them?  Maybe this should be done
> via the CASPER mail list?
>
>
>
> What can you suggest?
>
>
>
> Alex
>
> 021-7107442
>
>
>
> *From:* David Moschella Cyntony 
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 06 March 2019 7:25 PM
> *To:* Alex Bassios 
> *Cc:* Clifford van Dyk 
> *Subject:* BSP request from INAF
>
>
>
> Hello,
>
>
>
> As you saw last week, Andrea Melis completed the SKARAB ATP and has
> accepted the SKARAB.
>
>
>
> He requested today that we provide the BSP, hopefully with a full VHDL
> template.
>
> He also requested "any personality already compiled with its Linux control
> software (for example, SDR applications)”
>
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
>
>
> *David A Moschella* | *Founder and President*
>
> *Cyntony Corporation *|* Lexington, MA, USA* |* www.cyntony.com
>   *
>
> M: 617-407-0753 | O: 781-430-0675 |  dmosche...@cyntony.com
>
>
>
> Cyntony boosts system integrators with customer attuned℠ provision of
> high-value antenna and electronics products
>
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> Fixed, Portable*
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>

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