Nitro cores Migen/LiteX wrappers

This repository contains wrappers to allow to use some of the Nitro FPGA cores in a Migen and/or LiteX environment.

Wrapped Cores

no2usb: USB device core

This core is wrapped as no2migen.litex.NitroUSB for use as a wishbone LiteX peripheral.

The core can be added as such (in the __init__ of your SoCCore) :

self.submodules.usb = NitroUSB(platform, platform.request("usb"))
self.bus.add_slave("usb", self.usb.bus, SoCRegion(size=64*kB, cached=False))

The usb resource must define the pads for d_p, d_n and pullup. Clocking wise, the core works at any sys frequency for its interface to the SoC but needs a usb_48 ClockDomain to be defined and running at 48 MHz for the USB SIE part.

You also need to add a small work around just after constructing your Builder and before calling its build method. This is required because of enjoy-digital/litex#951

soc.usb.add_gateware_dir_files(builder.gateware_dir)

The options available for the core are :

• evt_fifo=True/False: Enables or disable the event fifo which can be used by the driver to speed up operations slightly.

• irq=True/False: Enables the o_irq output of the core so it can generate interrupt on activity rather than using polling mode in the driver.

• sync=True/False: If your sys domain is the same as the usb_48 domain, both running at the same 48 MHz clock, then some CDC circuitry can be omitted.

no2muacm: USB CDC ACM core

LiteX variant

This core is wrapped as no2migen.litex.NitroMuAcmUart for use as a standard LiteX UART (compatible with other UART options).

If you just want your SoC to have an UART / Console over USB and don't want to run a USB stack yourself in your core, you can use this as an alternative to having a raw USB device core that you must drive yourself.

To use it, you must first disable the built-in UART added by passing with_uart = False to the SoCCore.__init__ call, usually using kwargs["with_uart"] = False to overwrite the default options.

And then create the UART module and add it yourself in the __init__ of your SoCCore:

from no2migen.litex import NitroMuAcmUart

usb_pads = self.platform.request("usb")
self.submodules.uart = NitroMuAcmUart(platform, usb_pads)
self.add_constant("UART_POLLING")

The usb resource must define the pads for d_p, d_n and pullup. Clocking wise, the core works at any sys frequency for its interface to the SoC but needs a usb_48 ClockDomain to be defined and running at 48 MHz for the USB SIE part.

The core also offers a bootloader_req that generates a pulse if the hosts requests a reboot to bootloader using a DFU_DETACH request. This should be tied to whatever logic you have to reboot your FPGA to its bootloader (assuming there is one).

The options available for the core are :

• vid / pid: Sets customs USB PID/VID for the core.

• vendor / product / serial: Sets the corresponding string descriptors (length limited to 16).

• no_dfu_rt: Disables the DFU runtime function of the core.

• sync=True/False: If your sys domain is the same as the usb_48 domain, both running at the same 48 MHz clock, then some CDC circuitry can be omitted.

Pure Migen variant

This core is also wrapped as no2migen.NitroMuAcmSync, no2migen.NitroMuAcmAsync and no2migen.NitroMuAcmBuffered.

Theses 3 variants expose the same kind of data interface, derived from AXI-Stream. Refer to the python docstring for the details. The Sync variant is meant to run entirely in one clock domain and it must be 48 MHz. The Async variant uses a usb_48 clock domain for the USB part but all user interfacing is done in the sys doman and this can be anything. The Buffered variant can use either clocking strategy (depending on sync parameter) but it adds some FIFO to increase efficiency.

For all variants the customizations options are the same as explained in the LiteX variant above.

Limitations

Some of the cores have limited FPGA architecture supports and will only work on some FPGA target. If you need support for another, adaptation is often not too complex (mostly IO buffers / BRAM primitives), you can open an issue on the appropriate core tracker.

License

See LICENSE.md for the licenses of the various components in this repository