TS-4600 FPGA Programming

Note:

We do not provide support for the opencores under our free support, however we do offer custom FPGA programming services. If interested, please contact us.

The opencore FPGA sources are available here.

We have prepared the opencore projects which gives you the ability to reprogram the FPGA while either preserving or removing our functionality as you choose. The code sources are in verilog, and we use Lattice Diamond to generate the JEDEC file. You can download Lattice Diamond from their site. You can request a free license, and it will run in either Windows or Linux (only Redhat is supported). In the sources you can find the functionality switches in the ts4600_top.v file:

parameter spi_opt = 1'b1;
parameter mwin_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xbus_opt = 1'b1;
parameter touchscreen_opt = 1'b1;
/* software currently requires these to be enabled/disabled contiguously. */
parameter xuart0_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart1_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart2_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart3_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart4_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart5_opt = 1'b0;
parameter xuart6_opt = 1'b0;
parameter xuart7_opt = 1'b0;

You can use these switches to enable and disable functionality. We do not enable everything at the same time because of space constraints on the FPGA. So for example, to disable SPI, MWIN, and MUXBUS and enable the rest of the XUARTS:

parameter spi_opt = 1'b0;
parameter mwin_opt = 1'b0;
parameter xbus_opt = 1'b0;
parameter touchscreen_opt = 1'b1;
/* software currently requires these to be enabled/disabled contiguously. */
parameter xuart0_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart1_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart2_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart3_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart4_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart5_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart6_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart7_opt = 1'b1;

For more advanced changes you may look to opencores.org which has many examples of FPGA cores. To build the FPGA with your new changes, go to the 'Processes' tab and double-click 'JEDEC File'. This will build a jedec file in the project directory. On a linux system, either x86 compatible or ARM, we provide an application called jed2vme.

jed2vme for x86

We also have the sources here.

WARNING:

Do not use the 'jed2vme' provided by Lattice. Their version writes to flash and as the opencores do not contain the bootrom so this will brick your board.

jed2vme can be used like this:

jed2vme bitstream.jed | bzip2 > bitstream.vme.bz2

To execute this on your board run this:

tshwctl --loadfpga=bitstream.vme.gz

To load this bitstream automatically you can place it in the root of the Debian partition and name it '/ts/ts4600-fpga.vme.bz2'. The initramfs will by default load this bitstream immediately on startup (before the shell starts). You should first test it manually to make sure it loads ok.

The FPGA contains flash memory which contains Technologic System's default FPGA flash load. Using an SRAM bitstream generated by our "jed2vme" with "tshwctl --loadfpga" will not overwrite the flash memory of the FPGA and will only load the SRAM contents of the FPGA, making for an unbrickable system.