Microblaze program not starting on powerup - CMOD A7

[Kvass]

Ugh, I feel as thought I'm at my wits end here. I have a project on my CMOD A7 35T, and I can't get it to boot the Microblaze on startup.

Whenever I program the device through VITIS using the debugger, my program starts and everything is well. I added my .ELF file to my Microblaze using the "associate elf file" function, and am storing my bin file via the "Configuration Memory Device" through the hardware manager. When I powercycle my board, I can see that the bitstream loaded and the clock is running based on my observations on the ILA. However my C program stored on the Microblaze isn't starting up for some reason. I've tried both release and debug versions of my C code, and I verified that I followed all steps when configuring my QSPI core and other related settings based on this post from before :

What are possible reasons why the Microblaze isn't launching on startup, but works every time when programming the board through Vitis or the hardware manager?

 

Vivado version is 2021.2

 

Thanks,

~Kvass

 

 

 

[artvvb]

Hi @Kvass,

Master SPI x4 not being set or some issue with the device selection dropdown in the Quad SPI IP configuration would have been my first thoughts. Since the device is running your program successfully when booting via JTAG, it isn't something like the processor being held in reset due to an incorrect reset polarity.

I managed to get a project booting following James' instructions, though I have a Cmod A7-35T with Micron flash and am using 2021.1 with a simple hello world project - neither of which is quite the same as your setup. I've ordered another board to hopefully be able to test with the Macronix part next week.

Thanks,

Arthur

 

[Kvass]

hmmm, I've double checked the QSPI IPcore and my device settings, everything is set to Quad mode. I am also using Micron memory on my CMOD a7 35T, so our setups are quite similar. I'll try to made the barebones Hello World project and expand from there, I'll post an update if I get it working and find the issue that was causing it not to launch.

 

Thanks,

Kvass

[artvvb]

Here's the project I used:

cmod_a7_spi.xpr.zip

vitis_export_archive.ide.zip

A journal file of a session where I programmed flash successfully is attached. You could potentially run TCL commands from that file to perform the same actions. File paths are specific to my system, but that's easy enough to correct.

Keep in mind with Hello World that if it's printed at the start as in the above project, a serial monitor might miss it, due to taking longer to connect to the device than the device and application take to boot.

Thanks,

Arthur

vivado.jou