difference of ZYBO boards

[izumitomonori]

Dear Experts,

I would like ask for help about a trouble concerning to the difference of ZYBO boards.

I have made up a micro SD card to boot my PetaLinux system for ZYBO.

Some ZYBO work fine with the card, while other ZYBOs fail to boot with it.

With the clock from L16 pin, PL modules seems to work fine for every board.

When I tried to run a C program on SDK (Run As Hardware), some boards fail even for the same design. It seems that the clock from PS is dead.

For every ZYBO, JP5 is set to SD when I use SD and JTAG when I use Vivado or SDK.
Every ZYBO works fine with a SD card for another design.

The serial numbers of the ZYBOs are as follows.
success:  PB200-279 REV B, D575131, D575052
failure:  PB200-279 REV B, D772329, D759942

The attached PS_Properties.xlsx is the properties of the processing system for my design.

It would be much appreciated if you would give me some advices and/or hints for the problem.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Tom IZUMI
 

PS_Properties.xlsx

[izumitomonori]

Dear JColvin,

Thanks for your comment and help.

Seeking for solutions, I have found a Zynq PS setting file ZYBO_zynq_def.xml in a github directory.

https://github.com/ucb-bar/fpga-zynq/blob/master/zybo/src/xml/ZYBO_zynq_def.xml

Importing this file as XPS settings and making changes needed on the setting, I have got both (Serial Number D5***** and D7*****) types of ZYBO working fine.

I wonder this is provided and maintained yet officially.

I am not sure what are the key properties which make the difference.

Regards,
Tom IZUMI
 

[JColvin]

Hi Tom IZUMI,

That does sound strange to have a few boards work successfully with your project and some not, even though they are set up the same, but have all of them run a different design successfully. I have asked some of our applications engineers to look into this; they'll get back to you here on the Forum.

Thanks,
JColvin

[sbobrowicz]

If I had to guess I would bet that it was something with the DDR parameters, but I might be wrong there. 

We maintain the ZYBO processing system configuration settings in our vivado-boards repository on www.github.com/digilent . This allows people using Vivado to just target their project at the ZYBO, and then the configuration of the Processing system IP core is done automatically. Currently we don't have the settings in a form that can be easily imported into ISE.

If you are doing Zynq development I would recommend making the jump to Vivado. Apart from what I consider to be a much easier design flow compared to XPS, it will also give you access to fixes and improvements that Xilinx has made to the Zynq design and build processes. My understanding is that Xilinx has stopped releasing updates for ISE so you will miss out on these improvements/fixes if you use it. 

[izumitomonori]

Dear sbobrowicz,

Yes, I do use Vivado 2015.4 for the design, not ISE.

I wonder if my understanding is right but in my experience ZYNQ PS is not well configured only with the ZYBO board file from
   https://reference.digilentinc.com/vivado:boardfiles
even for Vivado.
I have to import additional board definition from
   https://github.com/ucb-bar/fpga-zynq/blob/master/zybo/src/xml/ZYBO_zynq_def.xml
and to make some modification for devices such as LED on MIO7, buttons on MIO51,50.

Best regards,
Tom IZUMI
 

[sbobrowicz]

Sorry, I saw the letters "XPS" and jumped straight to ISE (disregarding that you already mentioned Vivado). That's my bad.

We are not aware of any bugs in the ZYBO board files. If your are targeting the ZYBO board with your project then when you insert the Zynq processing system IP core, you should get the option to "Run IP Automation" (or something similar) in a yellow stripe towards the top of your block diagram. If you click it and then open the Zynq IP core, you should see everything configured correctly to work on the ZYBO, including the MIO GPIO for the LED/BTNs.  Is this not working?

[izumitomonori]

Dear sbobrowicz,

Thanks for the kind advice.

I have selected the ZYBO board file and perform [Run Block Automation] with [Apply Board Preset] in the Block Design. However, Zynq PS is not well configured.

Here attached are screenshots of the situation.

test_boardfile0.gif : Check the ZYBO borad file specified.
test_boardfile1.gif : Put Zynq PS in Block Design and see [Run Block Automation]
test_boardfile2.gif : Perform [Run Block Automation] with [Apply Board Preset].
test_boardfile3.gif : [Run Block Automation] done.
test_boardfile4.gif : Check the configuration of Zynq PS but not configured well. For example, ENET0, USB0, UART1, GPIO MIO7,50,51,...

After test_boardfile3.gif, I have to import ZYBO_zynq_def.xml and make some additional settings such as GPIO MIO7,50,51.

The tool used is Vivado 2015.4.

I wonder my procedure is correct or something wrong.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Tom IZUMI
 

[sbobrowicz]

It looks like Vivado is using the incorrect board files that were built for versions of vivado prior to 2015.1. Please follow this guide to install the newer version of the board files:

https://reference.digilentinc.com/reference/software/vivado/board-files

Then go into your C:/Apps/Xilinx/Vivado/2015.4/data/boards/board_parts folder and delete the zybo folder (it may be found beneath the "zynq" folder). We have found that if you install the older type of board files into newer versions of Vivado, sometimes it will try to use the older board files and ignore the new ones. 

 

[izumitomonori]

Dear sbobrowicz,

Thanks for your kind help.

I think I have registered  board_files/zybo but not delete board_parts/zynq/zybo.

After deleting boards/board_parts/zynq/zybo, ZYNQ PS in Vivado IP Integrator seems to be configured well.

Thanks a lot.

 

I would like to ask a request to the Digilent support team. The website has no explanation that older files should be removed when newer files are installed. Non-expert users should run into chaos without the direction of deletion. There should be such direction in the how-to-install.

Best regards,
Tom IZUMI