Cmod A7 Out-of-Box Demo

This simple User Demo project is a Microblaze project that tests the SRAM on the Cmod A7 and features the basic I/O on the device.

• The SRAM is tested and the results can be seen through the UART port.
• The RGB LED cycles through different colors while BTN1 is pressed.
• The User LEDs display a 2 bit binary counter while BTN1 is pressed.

• Cmod A7 with MicroUSB programming cable
• Vivado and Vitis installations compatible with the latest release of this demo (2020.1)
  • See Installing Vivado, Vitis, and Digilent Board Files for installation instructions.
• Serial Terminal application to receive messages printed by the demo
  • See Installing and Using a Terminal Emulator (Redirect) for more information.

First and foremost, releases - consisting of a set of files for download - are only compatible with a specific version of the Xilinx tools, as specified in the name of the release (referred to as a release tag). In addition, releases are only compatible with the specified variant of the board. For example, a release tagged “20/DMA/2020.1” for the Zybo Z7 is only to be used with the -20 variant of the board and Vivado 2020.1.

The latest release version for this demo is highlighted in green.

Note for Advanced Users: All demos for the Cmod A7 are provided through the Cmod-A7 repository on Github. Further documentation on the structure of this repository can be found on this wiki's Digilent FPGA Demo Git Repositories (Redirect) page.

Instructions on the use of the latest release can be found in this dropdown:

Using the Latest Release

This page has been moved, the new location is Using a Digilent FPGA Github Demo's Releases (2020.1).

Set up the Cmod A7

Plug the microUSB programming cable into the Cmod A7's PROG/UART port.

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This page has been moved, the new location is Using a Digilent FPGA Github Demo's Releases (2020.1).

At this point, the demo is now running on your board. Refer to the Description section of this document for more information on what it does.

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Additional steps beyond here present how you can use the other archive provided in the release, containing the hardware project, to rebuild the Vivado project, and use a newly exported XSA file to update the platform in Vitis.

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This page has been moved, the new location is Using a Digilent FPGA Github Demo's Releases (2020.1).

For this demo, every time BTN1 is pressed, the LED state changes. The user LEDs create a 2 bit binary counter that increments every time the button is pressed. The RGB LED changes color every time the button is pressed.

Whenever the demo is started from Vivado SDK, the board will go through a memory test and will print out the result. If the memory is working, the following message will appear.

Whenever a button is pressed, the message “Button Pressed” is sent over UART.

All materials related to the use of the Cmod A7 can be found on its Resource Center.

For a walkthrough of the process of creating a simple baremetal software project in Vivado and Vitis, see Getting Started with Vivado IP Integrator and Vitis (Redirect). Information on important parts of the GUIs, and indirect discussion of the steps required to modify, rebuild, and run this demo in hardware can also be found here.

For technical support, please visit the FPGA section of the Digilent Forum.

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