Question about vivado board files

[0xbadcaffe]

Hi

Just out of curiosity, why are the Digilent Xilinx Design Constraint (XDC) files are not part of the vivado-boards git repository, and can be selected when adding a constraint with the appropriate board type?

Why do I have to download the XDC file from a separate digilent-xdc repository?

When I create a new project in vivado and choose the board type, the board's configuration files are added to the project (XMLs), why is the XDC file not one of them?

Thanks!

[JRys]

Hello,

We maintain control over our boards and update the files when issues arise. Making them part of Xilinx would delay getting fixes out to customers.

https://github.com/Digilent/vivado-boards/tree/master/new/board_files

Best regards,
John

[JRys]

I spoke with a colleague about this, and they indicated that the board files are available from Xilinx, but you must hunt for them. We update Xilinx once a year with fixes we've encountered. I will look for a link to them and update this post later.

 

[JColvin]

Hello,

I'm the aforementioned colleague. I think there is a small bit of confusion; the board files for Digilent products can be downloaded from the "Xilinx Board Store" (presuming I recall the correct name when selecting a board while creating a new project in Vivado). However, I do not think the .xdc files are part of this download.

The engineer who collaborated with Xilinx to get the Digilent board files up on the Xilinx repository is out of office this week, but @JRys and I will be sure to ask them next week if adding the .xdc files to those downloads can be done (or if there is some weird restriction preventing this, since I recall there being a strict set of requirements before Xilinx allowed Digilent board files to be pulled into their repository in the first place).

Thanks,
JColvin

[latot]

Hi!, I was just checking, now in vivado, the constrains are empty by default, that means now selecting the board does not add the xdc .... we need to add it manually, but how the repo does not have it... now vivado says the boards does not have any connectors on the project.

[JRys]

Check out this getting started, precisely the prerequisites. There's a link to download the library of XDC files

https://digilent.com/reference/programmable-logic/guides/getting-started-with-vivado

Also, about a third of the way down, notice the part about Vivado 2022.1 having an extra step when choosing the board. 

 

[0xbadcaffe]

Hi all and thanks for the replys.

I understand that the XDC file has to be added manually and I also followed the instructions for adding it successfully.

I was asking why they're not being added automatically while choosing the board type in Vivado project creation.

I assume the reason was described by JColvin regarding some Xilinx restrictions.

[JColvin]

Hi @0xbadcaffe,

I checked with the other engineer who submitted the Digilent board files to the Xilinx Board Store; essentially, the .xdc files are not able to be added.

There was a much longer reasoning on why they couldn't be added / how the files potentially could be added but then we couldn't control if they got downloaded, etc. For what it's worth, Xilinx doesn't add the .xdc files to their own files on their Board Store either (https://github.com/Xilinx/XilinxBoardStore/tree/2022.2/boards/Xilinx) which lends to the idea that simply adding the files is not as straightforward as it might seem.

Thanks,
JColvin

[0xbadcaffe]

Hi JColvin

I understand, we'll just have to wait for Xilinx to come up with a solution.

I'll stick with downloading the XDC files manually.

Thank you very much for the inquiry.