Introducing TREEspan File System

TreeSpan File System (TSFS) logo.

Last week was one of pride and excitement for the JBLopen’s development team as we released our latest product, the TREEspan File System (TSFS). After the official announcement and presentation, we feel the need to introduce the newcomer in a more personal way, such as we see it from the inside. Above all, we would … Read more

MicroBlaze Benchmarks Part 2 – Memory Bandwidth & Latency

Plot of a MicroBlaze system memory access latency and memory bandwidth versus the working set size.

Following the last article on core performance this article looks at the MicroBlaze memory bandwidth and access latency. Within the article benchmarks results are presented and discussed for various configuration of the MicroBlaze memory sub system such as local memory, AXI blobk RAM and external SDRAM memory.

GCC Toolchain Eclipse Setup Guide Part 3 — Makefile Project

Close up screenshot of the Eclipse IDE editor with a custom Makefile displayed.

In this third part of the series on setting up a bare-metal GCC toolchain in Eclipse we look at Makefile projects. A Makefile project, is more complicated to setup but offers greater control and flexibility over the build process. A Makefile based project is also independent of Eclipse and can be built and maintained easily outside of Eclipse which can be useful for automated builds.

MicroBlaze Benchmarks Part 1 – CoreMark Performance

Digilent ARTY7-35 development board with USB and Ethernet cables connected.

Following the success of the MicroBlaze configuration guide this article looks at core performance benchmarks of the Xilinx MicroBlaze using the EEMBC CoreMark benchmark. Like the previous article series, this article looks at various memory hierarchy configurations including local and external DDR memory and their impact on core performance.

GCC Toolchain Eclipse Setup Guide Part 2 — Managed Build Project

Close-up screenshot of the Eclipse IDE showing the code editor open with a portion of the toolbar.

This guide will go through the steps of creating a managed build project using Eclipse and the GCC toolchain setup in the previous guide. Along with basic instructions the guide includes information on how to setup the cross-gcc build as well as how to fix common build issues when using Eclipse and GCC.

MicroBlaze Configuration for an RTOS Part 3 – Cache Configuration

Close up view of a MicroBlaze system within the Xilinx Vivado IP Integrator.

This article will look into details the cache configuration for the MicroBlaze that was skipped in part 2. Configuring the cache correctly is critical to the overall performance of a MicroBlaze system and can also take a considerable amount of FPGA resource, especially block RAM. When configuring the cache, the goal is to use the minimum cache size required to meet the application’s performance but no larger.

MicroBlaze Configuration for an RTOS Part 2 – Configuration Parameters

Close up of the MicroBlaze IP block within the Xilinx Vivado IP Integrator.

This article aims at helping developers and designers who must configure a MicroBlaze system. Especially early on in the development process where the final firmware is not available for benchmarking and tweaking. At these early steps it is often necessary to select a good approximation of the final configuration to have a good idea of the resource usage of the MicroBlaze.

Introduction to On-Chip RAM

Block diagrams of three types of on-chip RAM (OCRAM) topology.

On chip ram or internal RAM, often abbreviated OCRAM or OCM has been around since the earliest System on Chips(SoCs). This articles goes over general purpose On-Chip RAM as well as more specialized forms such as Tightly Coupled Memory (TCM) and DMA buffers. We discuss major features and design considerations that could impact an embedded … Read more