Documentation
Introduction
This page is an index to documentation for our 64-bit RISC-V SoC platform. We’ll be refreshing with further pointers to documentation for our other projects.
These SoC platform code releases and documentation have the aim of easing the path of new users and students, providing a robust tested platform for research into computer architecture, and conforming to a license model which is compatible with commercial research and development as well as IC manufacture. The current release is:
- lowRISC with Ariane SystemVerilog CPU and X-windows support
Release version 0.7, released February 2020
This release supports the Rocket CPU from the ariane-v0.7 release as well as the Ariane CPU. The (optional) Debian distribution has gone through some major refactoring to provide support for rust and llvm. We recommend using a slightly modified version of buildroot-2019.11-1, which includes preliminary support for X-windows. It does not support OpenGL or any kind of acceleration.
All releases are available here
What is included
Here you can find selected software and hardware IP which works together to produce an (almost) fully open-source computer system, consisting of:
- RISCV CPU, either Rocket written in the Chisel/Scala hardware description language, or Ariane written in System Verilog
- A variety of useful peripherals, UART, MMC/SD-Card controller, Ethernet(100/1000BaseT), Bluetooth, X-windows compatible screen
- PC-Compatible HID keyboard interface, additional Bluetooth Keyboard/Mouse (additional interfacing hardware PMOD-BT required)
- AXI compatible interface to proprietary DDR memory controller from Xilinx (included in Vivado)
- Choice of three boot loaders (QSPI flash memory, MMC/SD-Card, tftp Ethernet)
- RISCV-Linux kernel v5.3.18, supplemented with drivers to attach to the above peripherals
- Linux userland operating system based on buildroot-2019.11-1
Getting started breakdown
The latest release has the instructions broken down by topic, instead of the release specific documentation that was included previously.
- Introduction to development
- Overview of the latest release
- Download the source code
- Install FPGA synthesis and simulation tools
- Preparing the development environment
- Build the buildroot tree
- Produce an FPGA Bitstream
- Flash the SD-Card
- Program the FPGA
- Configure DHCP
- Install support for RISCV emulation
- Optional: downloading and Installing Debian
- Remote Booting using tftp
- Booting the kernel from QSPI memory
- Booting the kernel from SD-Card
- Preparing to launch X-windows
- Updating the kernel on a running system
- Booting a customised network filing system
- Debugging with gdb
- Frequently asked questions for this release