Re: [microblaze-uclinux] Partial reconfiguration using MicroBlaze

[John Williams <jwilliams@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Jingzhao Ou wrote:

> I read John's paper on ERSA'04. There is a shell function call in 
> uCLinux that can load the partial reconfiguration bitstream to the FPGA 
> device.

It's simpler than that - just a character device driver that is mapped 
over the ICAP primitive.  So you can cat a partial bitstream to the 
device, and that causes (partial) reconfiguration (or the hardest of all 
hard lock-ups, depending on how bad your partial bitstream is!)

> I wonder if any one can point me to the part of code in uCLinux that 
> realizes this function? It would be even better if there is any simple 
> example C code for this.

I haven't put it into the CVS - it's experimental research code.  You 
can find the driver source here (in the attachment):

http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~listarch/microblaze-uclinux/archive/2004/08/msg00072.html

> Also, if there is any thing wrong in the reconfiguration process, will 
> it destroy the device? The prototyping board I am using right now is 
> quite expensive. I may need to test this on a cheaper board first. :-)

Well, these devices are tougher than you think.  Apparently it's 
actually quite hard work to burn the FPGA.  But that's easy for me to 
say, it's not my device! :)

> BTW, I know there is a mailing list especially for this issue. However, 
> that list is kind of dead. If any one think this email is inappropriate 
> for this mailing list, I can resend it to that list again.

I don't think anyone will complain if we have this conversation here - 
maybe copy it to both lists?  A dead list will stay dead while there's 
no traffic on it! :)

One point though - please start a new thread for new subjects, rather 
than just replying to an existing message and changing the subject line. 
  Makes the archives much cleaner.

Thanks,

John

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