ti375 devkit litex debian demo

[Dolu1990]

Hardware :

• Board : https://www.efinixinc.com/products-devkits-titaniumti375c529.html
• HDMI : https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/efinix-inc/EFX-HDMI/17084519?s=N4IgTCBcDaIKYDMCWA7JAPABACwCYFskQBdAXyA
• USB host pmod extention board (4 ports to connect mouse/keyboard/...) : https://github.com/Dolu1990/pmod_usb_host_x4/blob/main/pmods.pdf
• 32 GB sdcard (could be 16 GB for smaller debian images)

Litex :

• soc/cores/vexiiriscv: update clocks + add video framebuffer support enjoy-digital/litex#2059
• build/efinix: add a few IO primitives, IO constraints, sdc rework enjoy-digital/litex#2060
• Add efinix Ti375 c529 dev kit support litex-hub/litex-boards#610
• python3 -m litex_boards.targets.efinix_ti375_c529_dev_kit --cpu-type=vexiiriscv --cpu-variant=debian --update-repo=no --with-jtag-tap --with-sdcard --with-coherent-dma --with-ohci --vexii-video "name=video" --vexii-args="--fetch-l1-hardware-prefetch=nl --fetch-l1-refill-count=3 --fetch-l1-mem-data-width-min=128 --lsu-l1-mem-data-width-min=128 --lsu-software-prefetch --lsu-hardware-prefetch rpt --performance-counters 9 --lsu-l1-store-buffer-ops=32 --lsu-l1-refill-count 4 --lsu-l1-writeback-count 4 --lsu-l1-store-buffer-slots=4 --relaxed-div" --l2-bytes=524288 --l2-ways=8 --sys-clk-freq 100000000 --cpu-clk-freq 200000000 --with-cpu-clk --bus-standard axi-lite --vexii-macsg name=eth,address=0xF1000000,txIrq=40,rxIrq=41 --cpu-count=4 --build --load
• Board support PR : efinix_ti375_c529_dev_kit now support vexii ethernet litex-hub/litex-boards#619

Debian / Linux / Opensbi images generation :

• https://github.com/SpinalHDL/VexiiRiscv/tree/dev/doc/litex/debian
• Note that it use this linux (it has the ethernet drivers) : https://github.com/Dolu1990/litex-linux/tree/spinal-sgmac

Debian and FPGA images are uploaded here :
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12WYe_igo2edwZABvF9Zta_bw4kuEbhms?usp=sharing

Here is how you can flash a sdcard using those (after you uncompressed p1 p2) :

export SDCARD=/dev/???
export SDCARD_P1=${SDCARD}p1
export SDCARD_P2=${SDCARD}p2

(
echo o
echo n
echo p
echo 1
echo
echo +600M
echo y
echo n
echo p
echo 2
echo
echo +19000M
echo y
echo t
echo 1
echo b
echo p
echo w
) | sudo fdisk $SDCARD

sudo mkfs.vfat $SDCARD_P1
sudo mkfs.ext4 $SDCARD_P2
sudo e2label $SDCARD_P2 rootfs

dd if=p1.img of=$SDCARD_P1
dd if=p2.img of=$SDCARD_P2

[silverliningeda]

excuse my ignorance as i have worked entirely on cloud FPGAs. i am trying to collect all the hardware needed to replicate this demo.

can you add a little detail about what you mean by the USB pmod and what it is needed for ?

[Dolu1990]

Hi,
The USB pmod is this extention board :
https://github.com/Dolu1990/pmod_usb_host_x4/tree/main

It provide USB host support to the system, allowing to connect mouse, keyboard, sound card, and other USB peripherals

[silverliningeda]

where can i get it? or do i need to do some soldering (which i dont know how to do) ?
thanks

[Dolu1990]

To get it :

• Either you order the PCB (i did it on pcbway), then you order the componants and mount them.
• Either you ask a compagny to do the whole process (can be done on pcbway aswell, but quite a bit more expensive)

The only thing to be careful about is "The PMOD connector is on the bottom side of the PCB in kicad, but should be solder on the top."

[Dolu1990]

I would say, if you have access to a USB cable, cut the cable, solder pins on the wires and pull down resistor on it, you should be good to go. No need of a PCB (but it keeps things cleaner XD).

[silverliningeda]

ok i will try to figure it out.

but even without using PMOD0 and PMOD1, it should be sufficient to use PMOD2 (Efinix HDMI extentions board) to see debian booting on a monitor right ?

[Dolu1990]

The efinix HDMI extentions board doesn't use a pmod, but another connector.

You don't event need that HDMI if you use the serial port ^^