XCELLENCE IN AUTOMOTIVE & ISM
Starting with the camera reference design, a software developer can,
from day one, begin implementing an operating system and programming
the application layer using the EDK software development tools.
The reference designs help accelerate
development by implementing specific
data flows that are common to video systems.
One such example is having a camera
provide RAW image data to the FPGA for
processing and display, as seen in the camera
reference design shown in Figure 1.
The VSK provides all necessary source
and project files for the reference designs,
which developers use as a starting point.
In the camera reference design, the camera
processing block is a design developed in
System Generator and integrated as a dedicated
hardware peripheral with the EDK
embedded system. This allows hardware
designers to easily remove the example
image processing, replace it with new or
existing designs and integrate it within the
Processor
System Reset
Clock
Generator
Block
RAM
ILMB DLMB
MicroBlaze
Processor
system without having to design the supporting
hardware peripherals.
Embedded Processing
The migration to a complex hardware
acceleration processing system is stepping
up the need for embedded processing to
handle all the real-time control, configuration
and system interaction.
The tight integration means designers
can convert DSP designs captured in
System Generator into custom peripherals
for Platform Studio, and connect
them to the base system using the PLB
bus. This allows a system designer to easily
enable the system control and migration
of existing system software with the
adoption of a MicroBlaze v7 soft-core
MDM
IXCL
DXCL
PLB
Application Stack
Operating System
UART
MPMC
DDR2
Figure 2 – Application programming on the VSK
20 Xcell Journal First Quarter 2009
GPIO
DIP Switches
System ACE
processor. Designers gain performance
and achieve system integration by exploiting
the flexibility of the device to configure
a hardware architecture optimized for
a particular application. Starting with the
camera reference design, for example, a
software developer can, from day one,
begin implementing an operating system
and programming the application layer
using the EDK software development
tools (see Figure 2).
This flexibility adds a degree of freedom
to the development process that also
reduces the design complexity. The
XtremeDSP Video Starter Kit gives a
hardware or software developer a complete
and easy-to-use design environment
with example applications and full sup-
GPIO
Push Buttons
XPS IIC
GPIO
LEDs
XPS IIC
PLB
ARB
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