Hardware Development Kit (HDK)
- Based on AXI4 interface protocol, all provided logic blocks support AXI4 interconnects
- Utilises standard Xilinx and third-party tools – ISE, XPS, Mentor ModelSim
- Logic blocks provided for all external hardware interfaces
- PCIe-to-AXI bridge (high-speed data transfer to a host PC)
- External memory controller (access to onboard Flash for non-volatile storage)
- DDR3 controller (general-purpose memory controller for onboard dynamic memory)
- I²C (controls access to onboard EEPROM, Real-Time Clock (RTC), temperature sensors, and GPIO
- UART (provides serial port capability)
- Input/output (support for DAC, ADC, etc.)
- Additional masters and slaves (custom IP blocks can be added with AXI4 and PCIe access)
- MSI-X interrupt controller (supports inbound and outbound interrupts)
- Device ID block (provides a linked list of capabilities present in the FPGA that host software can parse through to determine at runtime the capabilities present in the FPGA)
- High-performance DMA controller
- Tandem/partial reconfiguration support available
- Complete example designs provided
- Complete documentation
Software Development Kit (SDK)
- Drivers to communicate with FPGA devices
- Utility and APIs to re-flash and set up FPGA
- APIs to discover capabilities loaded into FPGA
- Support for VxWorks and Linux on both Freescale (QorIQ) and Intel® (Core™ i7) processors
The Software Development Kit (SDK) includes drivers, libraries, and utilities to support the control of and communication with FPGAs in the system.
A driver framework is provided for software developers. The provided FPGA driver queries the FPGA to determine the capabilities that are instantiated in the FPGA. Based on the FPGA capabilities it discovers, the FPGA driver loads capabilities drivers. X-ES provides
capability drivers for the following FPGA capabilities.
- I²C
- GPIO
- RS-232
- Flash
- Daughter card interfaces (ADC and DAC)
These drivers can be used as is or as a starting point for software developers to create their own application. Customers can add additional capability drivers.
All SDK software is written in ANSI C. Source code is provided for SDK software. The SDK is supported on Linux running on Intel and Freescale hosts.