The traditional way of debugging an SoC which is programmed inside a FPGA was by using a JTAG Adapter which comes with an FTDI Chip. In recent times, modern FPGA’s come with an integrated FTDI chip which makes debugging easy with only a USB cable.
In this document, I am going to guide you through the steps in an experiment which I conducted along with my supervisor to debug an SoC named MURAX without using an external JTAG adapter on ARTY A7 FPGA.
2. Generation of Bscane2 within Murax SoC in Linux
The BSCANE2 allows access between the internal FPGA logic and the JTAG Boundary Scan logic controller. This allows for communication between the internal running design and the dedicated JTAG pins of the FPGA.
2.1 Steps to create Bscane2
• After cloning all the files from https://github.com/SpinalHDL/VexRiscv, go to this path : src/main/scala/vexriscv/demo and find the Murax.scala file.
• Add the following import statement at the beginning in Murax.scala :
import spinal.lib.com.jtag.JtagTapInstructionCtrl
• Then to generate the SoC with a demo program already in ram, run:
sbt "runMain vexriscv.demo.MuraxWithRamInit"
• A verilog file will be generated with the name Murax.v and four .bin files will be generated inside VexRiscv folder which can be used to program the FPGA. Inside the Murax.v file, we can see that the Bscane2 ports will be instantiated, confirming that the Bscane2 has been created within the Murax SoC to debug it.
3. Programming Arty A7 FPGA
There are many applications to program a FPGA. I am using Xilinx Vivado 2020 Application to program the FPGA.
3.1 Steps involved to program the FPGA
• Create a new project and choose the board which are using and choose the constraint file.
• As, I mentioned in the previous section a verilog file and four .bin files will be generated in the Vexriscv folder. Copy these files and paste them inside your vivado project in this path : project_name.srcs\sources_1\imports\Downloads
• Create a toplevel file by instantiating Murax I/O ports in it to blink the LED’s on the FPGA. (Note : The program to blink the LED’s is already present in Murax.v file). The toplevel file and constraint file, if required can be found here : https://github.com/SpinalHDL/VexRiscv/tree/master/scripts/Murax/arty_a7 , but make sure all the jtag ports of Murax are commented or deleted in the toplevel file.
• Next, click Generate Bitstream and program the FPGA with the bit file. You can see the LED’s blink and Murax SoC has been programmed into the FPGA.
4. Debugging via OpenOCD GDB in Linux
• In a new terminal in Linux, after cloning and setting up openocd with the steps provided in this link : https://github.com/SpinalHDL/openocd_riscv , run the below command to establish a openocd connection with Jtag of FPGA.
you can take it from https://github.com/SpinalHDL/SaxonSoc/blob/dev-0.3/bsp/digilent/ArtyA7SmpLinux/openocd/usb_connect.cfg (without modifications i would say)
• Then, after openocd is running, in new terminal, follow the below commands in VexriscvSocSoftware folder ( https://github.com/SpinalHDL/VexRiscvSocSoftware )
• Go to the path VexRiscvSocSoftware/projects/murax/demo/build and then give the below commands :
riscv64-unknown-elf-gdb demo.elf
target remote localhost:3333
monitor reset halt
load
continue
• After giving the monitor reset halt command you can see that the LED’s stop blinking and when the continue command is given the LED’s start continuing from the point where they stopped.
