May 4, 2022

FPGA - Spartan 3E board - ISE software

More exploration of cable drive setup (and as yet unsolved problems

Now we are on to "Configure Target device". I make sure the Digilent starter board is powered on and the USB cable properly connected. Then I double click on "configure target device".

I get a popup warning that no iMPACT project exists and that I will have to do stuff when I click OK and iMPACT launches (but when I save that configuration things will be "automatic" from then on. I click OK.

Now I am looking at the ISE iMPACT GUI, which seems happy with a big dark grey window. We double click on "Boundary Scan". Some blue text appears in the middle of the big window. We right click on it and select initialize chain. It fails. The final error is "Cable autodetection fails".

The console has all kinds of stuff. It is trying to use "parport_pc", which seems like an unlikely driver. Many of the errors instruct me to see "Answer Record 22648", whatever that is. It also complains about windrvr6, which seems equally unlikely. What may be instructive is the following: 

INFO:iMPACT - Digilent Plugin: Plugin Version: 2.4.4
INFO:iMPACT - Digilent Plugin: no JTAG device was found.
AutoDetecting cable. Please wait.
PROGRESS_START - Starting Operation.
Connecting to cable (Usb Port - USB21).
Checking cable driver.
File version of /u1/Xilinx/14.7/ISE_DS/ISE/bin/lin64/xusbdfwu.hex = 1030.
File version of /etc/hotplug/usb/xusbdfwu.fw/xusbdfwu.hex = 1030.
 Using libusb.
 Kernel release = 5.17.4-200.fc35.x86_64.
Cable connection failed.
INFO:Cse - The fxload application is not installed.
This application is required when using the Platform Cable USB.
This warning should be ignored if you are using the Parallel Cable III or Parallel Cable IV.
Please download and install the fxload-2002_04_11 package.
Note that root access is required to perform the installation.
Connecting to cable (Parallel Port - parport0).
....
Cable connection failed.
PROGRESS_END - End Operation.
Elapsed time =      0 sec.
Cable autodetection failed.
WARNING:iMPACT:923 - Can not find cable, check cable setup !
The only thing that seems pertinent to my linux setup is the discussion of "fxload". No telling what USB21 is all about.

I use File -- Close Project. The project is in /home/tom/ise_simple

What about fxload?

Using locate verifies that there is no such thing on my system. Much to my surprise this is something I can get from a Fedora package: 
su
dnf install fxload
This is a program for loading firmware into Cypress EZ-USB chips (which is what is used for USB on the starter board). Why they would want to fiddle with firmware on the USB chip is beyong me, but the say they need it.

Try again with fxload

After this I type "ise" again on the command line. Once it starts (with my project) I immediately double click "Configure Target Device". It repeats the 3 steps above automatically, but then the Boundary Scan fails again. Now there is no mention about fxload on the console, simply: 
GUI --- Auto connect to cable...
INFO:iMPACT - Digilent Plugin: Plugin Version: 2.4.4
INFO:iMPACT - Digilent Plugin: no JTAG device was found.
AutoDetecting cable. Please wait.
*** WARNING ***: When port is set to auto detect mode, cable speed is set to
default 6 MHz regardless of explicit arguments supplied for setting the baud rates
PROGRESS_START - Starting Operation.
Connecting to cable (Usb Port - USB21).
Checking cable driver.
File version of /u1/Xilinx/14.7/ISE_DS/ISE/bin/lin64/xusbdfwu.hex = 1030.
File version of /etc/hotplug/usb/xusbdfwu.fw/xusbdfwu.hex = 1030.
 Using libusb.
 Kernel release = 5.17.4-200.fc35.x86_64.
Cable connection failed.
Connecting to cable (Parallel Port - parport0).
....
Elapsed time =      0 sec.
Cable autodetection failed.
WARNING:iMPACT:923 - Can not find cable, check cable setup !
Feedback? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Computer Info / [email protected]