Drawing out address/data signals in ported ARM Cortex on FPGA

[DidYouCatchThat]

Hi all,

I am a UW student working on a undergraduate research project of porting an ARM Cortex processor into a FPGA. The goal of the project is to find a way to draw out the address/data/control signals between the soft-processor and the on-board ram to help future EE/CE students learn logical analysis. To this end, ARM has given my small team access to the Cortex Synthesizable Verilog code.  

It seems as though the only way to get the processor working on the FPGA is through Intel's Platform Designer tool and using it to create a custom interface between the processor and the board.

Does anyone know if there is a way to tap into the bus to draw out just the address/data/control signals? Or, alternatively, if there is a way to "tap wires" in between the soft-processor and the on-board ram so we can pull these signals out and send them into a logic analyzer? 

Note: Hardware/Software our team is using...

-Verilog Code for ARM Cortex M0 

-Terasic DE10-Lite

-Quartus Prime - Lite

-To-be-designed custom PCB to connect FPGA to Logical Analyzer 

[aikeu]

Hi DidYouCatchThat,

You can consider to use signaltap in oder to check the running signals.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/programmable/683819/21-3/logic-analyzer-introduction.html

Thanks.

Regards

Aik Eu

[sstrell]

I believe you mean "hard processor" wherever you say "soft processor" above.

Anyway, as mentioned, you can use Signal Tap to tap the bridges between the HPS and the FPGA fabric without requiring any external lab equipment.  You could also use tools like Signal Probe or the Logic Analyzer Interface (LAI) to bring signals out to available I/O pins to view on an external scope or logic analyzer.

[aikeu]

Hi sstrell,

Thanks for sharing additional info.

Hi DidYouCatchThat,

I will close this thread if no further question.

Thanks.

Regards,

Aik Eu

[aikeu]

Hi DidYouCatchThat,

I am closing this thread for now.

Thanks.

Regards,

Aik Eu