⇡ Tutorial for the v0.4 lowRISC release

Running on the FPGA

In this final step, we want to test the debug functionality on an FPGA board. The debug system will use the UART connection at 12 MBaud to communicate with the debug system.

Run the pre-built FPGA demo

The files you may need:

  • chip_top.bit: The tagpipe/minion/debug enabled FPGA bitstream
  • boot.bin: Linux, Busybox and Berkley bootloader (BBL) packaged in one image.

Download and write the bitstream

curl -L https://github.com/lowRISC/lowrisc-chip/releases/download/minion-v0.4-rc1/chip_top.bit > nexys4ddr_fpga.bit
curl -L https://github.com/lowRISC/lowrisc-chip/releases/download/minion-v0.4-rc1/boot.bin > boot.bin

Optional: It is helpful to check the integrity of the kernel before we load it

md5sum boot.bin > boot.md5

Convert the bitstream to quad-spi memory format

vivado -mode batch -source $TOP/fpga/common/script/cfgmem.tcl -tclargs "xc7a100t_0" nexys4ddr_fpga.bit

Burn the quad-spi memory (Ensure the MODE switch is set to QSPI)

vivado -mode batch -source $TOP/fpga/common/script/program_cfgmem.tcl -tclargs "xc7a100t_0" nexys4ddr_fpga.bit.mcs

There are three ways to boot a RISC-V Linux. For the first two cases, we need to open the debug daemon to load programs and connect to the UART console. First check the available serial ports:

ls -l /dev/*USB*

which should result in a response similar to:

crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 1 Apr 14 16:32 /dev/ttyUSB1

In this case the device is user and group only access, so you need to be a member of the group dialout to use it.

opensocdebugd uart device=/dev/ttyUSB1 speed=12000000 &

Directly load Linux to DDR RAM

The pre-built FPGA bitstream has a selftest program as the 1st stage bootloader (in an on-chip BRAM) which just jumps to DDR RAM if switch(0) is high (on the right). We need to load the Linux image to the DDR RAM.

osd-cli
osd> reset -halt
osd> terminal 2
osd> mem loadelf boot.bin 3
osd> start

The terminal should again boot Linux. To update the image simply perform the same action again. If you have a VGA display connected, you will see all output in both places (apart from Berkley boot loader messages).

Load Linux from SD card

Other than manually loading a Linux to the DDR RAM using the debugger, we can use the selftest program to load Linux from SD, if switch(1) is high (second from right).

Note: make sure the Linux image boot.bin and boot.md5 is copied to SD beforehand. With most systems this may be done with the file manager or similar GUI program.

osd-cli
osd> terminal 2
osd> reset

You should be able to see the boot program copy the boot.bin from SD to DDR RAM and then boot it.

Connect a USB-keyboard and VGA compatible LCD display

This method does not require a separate PC, once the bitstream has been burned to quad-spi flash. Note that the keyboard needs to be a PS/2 keyboard with USB interface to work with the Digilent board. For further information consult the Digilent documentation. It is advisable to power-cycle (i.e. turn it off and on again) after burning the QSPI flash and/or connecting these peripherals. After power-up, if all switches are off, you should see the following menu:

 selftest>

Available commands are a single character and the most commonly encountered ones are:

 'B' - boot the default kernel (default command is switch(0) is high)
 'P' - read and check kernel integrity but do not actually boot
 'D' - directory of available files
 'f' - display contents of a text file
 'J' - just jump to a pre-loaded Linux kernel (default command is switch(1) is high)
 'T' - test the SDRAM

Obscure commands, just for development are:

 'c' - display the SD-card response
 'd' - display the device memory map
 'C' - set the SD-card clock divider ratio
 'F' - boot from quad-SPI flash (not working in this release)
 'h' - display a SD-card disk sector
 'i' - send the legacy SD-card initialisation sequence
 'I' - send the linux compatible SD-card initialisation sequence
 'l' - set the LEDs to a hex pattern
 'm' - try to mount the MSDOS file system on the SD-card
 'M' - detect memory size with a walking ones pattern
 'q' - quit (as if there was anywhere to quit to)
 'r' - read an address range from Rocket memory
 'R' - read an address range from Minion memory
 's' - send a verbose command to the SD-card
 'S' - print the stack pointer location
 't' - control the SD-card timeout period
 'u' - try to unmount the MSDOS file system on the SD-card
 'W' - write an address in Minion memory

Run a standalone FPGA demo (no debugger support)

We still keep the option to build a fully standalone implementation that does not rely on a debugger.

You need to download two files:

Download and write the bitstream:

curl -L https://github.com/lowRISC/lowrisc-chip/releases/download/minion-v0.4-rc1/nexys4ddr_fpga_standalone.bit > fpga.bit
curl -L https://github.com/lowRISC/lowrisc-chip/releases/download/minion-v0.4-rc1/boot.bin > boot.bin

Now copy both binary files to the SD card and configure the Nexys4-DDR boot option to SD card (JP1 to USB/SD). Power up the FPGA board and open a terminal:

microcom -p /dev/ttyUSB0 -s 115200

You should be able to see that Linux boots from SD card.

A script is provided to load your SD card without manually downloading the binary files:

$TOP/fpga/board/nexys4_ddr/preload_image.sh /PATH/TO/SD/

You can also write the bitstream to FPGA by JTAG (JP1 to JTAG)

vivado -mode batch -source $TOP/fpga/common/script/program.tcl -tclargs "xc7a100t_0" fpga.bit

Mount an SD card inside RISC-V Linux

To discover whether an SD is recognized by the kernel:

cat /proc/partitions

If an SD card is formated in FAT32 and inserted (hot insertion not supported in this kernel), it should look like:

 179        0    7707648 mmcblk0
 179        1    7706624 mmcblk0p1

The first two device nodes, and first mount point are pre-created for you. If you created further partitions manually, create the device node as follows:

mkdir /mnt2
mkdir /mnt3
mknod /dev/mmcblk0p2 b 179 2
mknod /dev/mmcblk0p3 b 179 3 #etc..

To mount a DOS file system from this card:

mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt

After you finished with the SD card, remember to unmount it.

umount /mnt

To mount a manually created ext2 chroot partition from this card:

mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 /mnt
mount -t proc none /mnt/proc
chroot /mnt

After you finished with the chroot partition, remember to unmount it.

exit
umount /mnt/proc
umount /mnt

Build your own bitstream and images

Generate the bitstream

FPGA demo with a trace debugger

cd $TOP/fpga/board/nexys4_ddr
make cleanall
CONFIG=Nexys4DebugConfig make selftest

The generated bitstream is located at lowrisc-chip-imp/lowrisc-chip-imp.runs/impl_1/chip_top.new.bit. This will take some time (20-60 minutes depending on your computer).

standalone FPGA demo without a trace debugger

cd $TOP/fpga/board/nexys4_ddr
make cleanall
CONFIG=Nexys4Config make selftest

The generated bitstream is located at lowrisc-chip-imp/lowrisc-chip-imp.runs/impl_1/chip_top.new.bit. This will take some time (20-60 minutes depending on your computer).

Program the FPGA

Next, turn on the FPGA board and connect the USB cable. Now you download the bitstream to the quad-SPI on the FPGA board:

make cfgmem-updated
make program-cfgmem-updated

Download busybox (user commands)

cd $TOP/riscv-tools
curl -L http://busybox.net/downloads/busybox-1.21.1.tar.bz2 | tar -xj

Build Linux

sh $TOP/riscv-tools/fetch_and_patch_linux.sh
cd $TOP/fpga/board/nexys4_ddr
$TOP/riscv-tools/make_root.sh

If everything runs OK, you should have a boot.bin file.

Please note that the Berkeley bootloader used by the Linux kernel relies on a header file (dev_map.h) generated by the Rocket chip (automatically generated by the Chisel compilation process). Normally FPGA bitstream should be generated before building a kernel image. If you like to generate a kernel image without a bitstream, run the following to produce the header file:

cd $TOP/fpga/board/nexys4_ddr
CONFIG=Nexys4Config make verilog

Useful Makefile targets

make project

Generate a Vivado project.

make verilog

Run Chisel compiler and generate the Verilog files for Rocket chip.

make vivado

Open the Vivado GUI using the current project.

make bitstream

Generate the default bitstream according to the CONFIG in Makefile and the program loaded in src/boot.mem. The default bitstream is generated at lowrisc-chip-imp/lowrisc-chip-imp.runs/impl_1/chip_top.bit

make <hello|dram|sdcard|boot|jump|trace|flash>

Generate bitstreams for bare-metal tests:

  • hello A hello world program.
  • dram A DDR RAM test.
  • selftest A SD card read/write test and bare-metal debugging utility.
  • boot A 1st bootloader that loads boot.bin from SD to DDR RAM and executes boot.bin afterwards.
  • jump A 1st stage booloader that directly jumps to DDR RAM.
  • trace A software trace demo.
  • flash Read the content of the on-board Flash.

For each bare-metal test <test>, the executable is generated to examples/<test>.riscv. It is also converted into a hex file and copied to src/boot.mem, which then changes the default program for make bitstream and make simulation. The updated bitstream is generated at lowrisc-chip-imp/lowrisc-chip-imp.runs/impl_1/chip_top.new.bit

make <program|program-updated>

Download a bitstream to FPGA. Use program for lowrisc-chip-imp/lowrisc-chip-imp.runs/impl_1/chip_top.bit and program-updated for lowrisc-chip-imp/lowrisc-chip-imp.runs/impl_1/chip_top.new.bit

make <cfgmem|cfgmem-updated>

Convert a bitstream to the format suitable for quad-SPI flash on the FPGA board. Use cfgmem for lowrisc-chip-imp/lowrisc-chip-imp.runs/impl_1/chip_top.bit and cfgmem-updated for lowrisc-chip-imp/lowrisc-chip-imp.runs/impl_1/chip_top.new.bit

make <program-cfgmem|program-cfgmem-updated>

Download a bitstream to quad-SPI flash on the FPGA board. Use program-cfgmem for lowrisc-chip-imp/lowrisc-chip-imp.runs/impl_1/chip_top.bit and program-cfgmem-updated for lowrisc-chip-imp/lowrisc-chip-imp.runs/impl_1/chip_top.new.bit

make <clean|cleanall>

make clean will remove all generated code without removing the Vivado project files. To remove all files including the Vivado project, use make cleanall.

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