USB FPGA Module 1.11

SDK for ZTEX USB-FPGA-Modules

ZTEX provides a Open Source SDK which is especially designed for the ZTEX modules, but also works with other EZ-USB based hardware.

The package is Open Source and distributed under the GPLv3.

The package is known to work under Linux and Windows, but should work on every operating system which supports libusb and Java. The Java API allows the development of platform-independent host software.

Features

The main features are:

Firmware Kit (for EZ-USB Microcontrollers) is written in C (requires SDCC compiler).
Firmware is assembled using a powerful macro processor which allows to specify all required settings by a few macros. The necessary USB descriptors and the descriptor handling routines are generated automatically.
Host software API is written in Java and allows platform independent host software. It is possible to pack all necessary files (libusb libraries, firmware, bitstream) into one single jar archive which runs on both, Linux and Windows (and other OS's that support libusb and Java)
Licensed as Open Source under GPLv3
Main functions of the Firmware Kit / Java API are:
- Firmware upload directly into the EZ-USB Microcontroller
- Access to EEPROM memory
- Firmware upload to EEPROM
- Access to microSD/*SD/MMC Flash cards in SPI mode
- Bitstream upload directly to the FPGA
- Bitstream upload to Flash memory and autonomous FPGA configuration using Bitstream from Flash memory

SDK overview

The following diagram gives an overview about the usage of the different parts of the ZTEX EZ-USB SDK.

ZTEX EZ-USB SDK overview for Linux and Windows

The firmware of the EZ-USB device is developed using the Firmware Development Kit. It can be uploaded either by a utility which is a part of the SDK or by the host software itself using the Java API.

The host software usually consists of a single jar archive which contains

all necessary Java bytecode;
the libusb Java wrapper libraries for Linux (libusbJava.so) and Windows (libusbJava.dll), which are statically linked against libusb (no libusb installation required);
the firmware for the EZ-USB device (unless not installed in EEPROM);
Bitstream for the FPGA (if required).

This single jar archive runs on both, Linux and Windows (or other OS's that support libusb and Java).

On Linux this jar archive has no additional software requirements. The libusb(Java) library communicates directly with the EZ-USB device using kernel routines.

On Windows a libusb driver is required. (This driver is a part of the ZTEX SDK package). The libusb(Java) library communicates with the EZ-USB device using that driver.

Other programming languages

Devices with ZTEX firmware can be accessed easily with all programming languages for which a libusb port exists. But unlike Java, then there are no routines for uploading the firmware and the bitstream available so that the FWLoader included in the SDK has to be used.

Examples

An up-to-date list of the examples contained in the SDK can be found at ZTEX Wiki::Contents of the FPGA additional exaples (includung implementations of soft CPU's> cab be fount at ZTEX Wiki::Projects and examples