Only 8 out 16 digital pins available.

[ibwharri]

We have a need to access 14 digital pins, however it seems that QICK only supports 8 out of the 16 digital pins on the ZCU216 we are using. Is this a technical limitation, or is there something we can do to get access to the other 8 pins?

[meeg]

That's just how many pins are wired in the firmware; you would need to modify+recompile the firmware (starting with the source in https://github.com/openquantumhardware/qick/tree/main/firmware) to get more pins.

Making changes to the firmware is pretty nontrivial and we don't recommend it unless you have some experience - we can give you tips but we can't walk you through the whole learning process.

[ibwharri]

Would it just be as simple as duplicating these entries for PMOD0 in the tlc file to make PMOD1 equivalents (it looks like PMOD1_0 is used for something so maybe that one should be excluded), and then uncommenting these PMOD1 entries in the xfc file? Or is there something more involved in the firmware that would need to be done?

[meeg]

I think that's correct, but can't be sure you're not missing something. Normally one doesn't edit the bd.tcl file directly, there's a GUI.

[WolfLink]

As far as I can tell, from finding posts like this, editing the XDC file directly is the only way to connect more hardware ports.

If there is a way to do it through the GUI please let me know. I know how to create ports in the block design editor, but I can't find a way to map them to hardware ports through the GUI.

[meeg]

No, you're right - you can define and wire ports in the block design GUI, but the standard way to map ports to physical pins is using the XDC file e.g. https://docs.amd.com/r/en-US/ug1390-zcu216-eval-bd/Xilinx-Design-Constraints.