Spartan3 Framework supporting Digital Design, DSP

1
Spartan-3 Framework supporting Digital Design,
DSP Image Processing Projects and Courses
Dr Fearghal Morgan, NUI Galway

• Customisable user module (DSPBlk)
• Host GUI with USB and Serial interface options
• Demos Delta frame generation, Colour inversion,
  flip image, warp image, morph image, colour
  change, edge detection (in progress)

Spartan-3 FPGA
Host GUI
USB daughtercard
2
appliedVHDL Design Structure

• The FPGA system contains the following blocks
• host I/F (usb and serial options)
• CSR block
• SRAM controller
• display ctrlr
• dspBlk
• user-defined
• currently including a range of basic image
  processing tasks, supporting up to 512x512 pixel
  images, grayscale and colour

3
System CSRs

•       CSR 0 Top 2 bits of current SRAM Address
  (1716), SRAM quadrant select
•       1 SRAM Start address byte (158)
•       2 SRAM Start address byte (70)
•       3 SRAM End address byte (158)
•       4 SRAM End address byte (70)
•       5 Number of SRAM 32-bit longwords to be
  processed byte (158)
•       6 Number of SRAM 32-bit longwords to be
  processed byte (70)
•       7 DSP function
•       8 Colour change DSP value
•       9 Max pixel value check for both images
  during DSP

4
Configure Spartan 3

• Refernce demo configuration files are located in
  directory demoBitSVFFiles
• The USB port version is fast and vitalwhen
  processing images larger than 64x64
• The Serial port version is slow but functions
  well for small image sizes
• The USB interface requires connection of USB
  daughter card to Spartan-3 board
• Serial port implementation
• Configure using
• appliedVHDLUART.svf if using adept confguration
  interface
• appliedVHDLUART.bit if using parallel IV cable
• USB port implementation
• Configure using
• appliedVHDLUSBSimple.svf if using adept
  confguration interface
• appliedVHDLUSBSimple.bit if using parallel IV
  cable
• Source VHDL code is the same in both
  appliedVHDLUSBSimple and appliedVHDLUART except
• for the host interface blkck
• All VHDL code is contained in folder VHDL.

5
Execute Host GUI

• Unzip file VB.zip  
• Execute appliedVhdlBoth.exe in the VB folder (the
  .exe calls other programs in the VB directory).
• The GUI system will operate fully if the Spartan
  3 is connected using either the serial or USB
  port. A warning message is issued if the serial
  port connection is not correctly connected.
• If using serial port, ensure that connection is
  correct
• If using USB port, ignore warning message and
  select USB option on GUI
• On startup of the GUI, a CSR r/w test is
  performed in the background to verify the above.
  Note that CSR(0) is automatically cleared to 0 on
  GUI startup.
• If performing image processing, several image
  files (.bmp) are available in the VB directory.
  These must be located in the directory containing
  appliedVHDLBoth.exe.
• The USB implementation is very fast. While using
  the serial port implementation, testing on the
  smaller image (8, or 64 .bmps) is
  recommended.
• Select colour to open an image in colour mode

6
SRAM r/w controls
CSR r/w controls
Select serial connection or USB
7
SRAM r/w

• 256k x 32-bit onboard SRAM locations.
• SRAM is divided into 4 quadrants of size
  256kBytes
• Quadrant selected using the 2 top bits of SRAM
  address (defined in CSR 0 prior to an SRAM access
• Individual SRAM rd/write access control
• The SRAM address field must include 5 digits
  (corresponding to an 18-bit SRAM address value)
• GUI sets CSR 1-4 accordingly
• The SRAM write data field must include 8 digits
  (32-bits)
• Block SRAM reads and writes (to/from file) see
  next slide
• Filename, and number of 32-bit accesses is
  defined in GUI and start address
• GUI sets CSR 1-4 accordingly
• eg reading from address 0FFFF.  
• Quadrant is set to 0, Start address FFFF, end
  address is FFFF
• 4 bytes are then read from this location, SENT TO
  HOST and displayed in the relevant field in the
  GUI
• For writes to SRAM from a file, a .raw data file
  must first exist
• A .raw file example is included in VB directory
  for reference
• All files are stored as raw format as only bytes
  are saved and read.
• The execute button starts the process and will
  inform of any problems.

8
Write from file to SRAM

• File test.raw is provided in directory VB holding
  data FFFFFFFF.
• This can be modified or extended as source data
  for performing a data write to SRAM

9
Image processing function

• CLICK ON Open image 1 read first image
  (browse)   - it is automatically displayed
• Image 1 is converted to raw format and
  transferred from host to SRAM quadrant 0 (max
  256KBytes)
• CLICK ON Open image 2 read second image
  (browse)  - it is automatically displayed
• Image 2 is converted to raw format and
  transferred from host to SRAM quadrant 1 (max
  256KBytes)
• Note that two images must always be read even
  though some image processing functions only
  operate on image 1
• Images are displayed in 8-bit colour or greyscale
  depending on the chosen option in Colour Choice.
• The type of image processing depends on the
  option chosen in the DSPfunctions menu.
• Image Processing can then be activated
• Results (stored in SRAM quadrant 2) are
  automatically transferred to host and displayed.
• In the top right corner of the GUI the DSP
  options are available. Any can be chosen prior to
  pressing the Execute image processing button
• The GUI extracts the number of SRAM 32-bit
  longwords comprising the image(s) to be processed
  and programs CSR 5-6 accordingly. Selected DSP
  function is written to CSR 7.
• The DSP function operates on the defined number
  of 32-bit SRAM longwords in the image starting
  from quadrant address 0

10
Demo using EENUIGImage1_512x512.bmp EENUIGImage2_
512x512.bmp (slightly shifted version of the
above image) Image processing, colour mode,,
serial port (very slow !), delta frame generation
11
Demo using EENUIGImage1_512x512.bmp EENUIGImage2_
512x512.bmp (slightly shifted version of the
above image) Image processing, colour mode,,
serial port (very slow !), invert colours
12
Demo using EENUIGImage1_512x512.bmp EENUIGImage2_
512x512.bmp (slightly shifted version of the
above image) Image processing, colour mode,,
serial port (very slow !), flip image
13
Miscellaneous points

• USB daughter card rewiring issue
• Note that the USB daughtercard has been rewired
  see the .ucf file in the VHDL directory for
  pinout and picture of daughter card/Spartan 3
  card on the first slide. This may be different
  for the latest revision of the USB daughtercard
  or other wirting/.ucf workarounds.
• Images must contain an even number of pixels (2
  0), i.e., always a whole number of 32-bit words
  to be transferred. 
• BMP images up to size 512x512 are supported (256k
  bytes or 1/4 the size of the SRAM on the
  Spartan-3 board)
• 24-bit colour images format must be used. This is
  translated to 8-bit image (indexed with colours
  chosen at fixed intervals to give as many
  different colours as possible, sorted by hue to
  give a natural progression of colours

14
Demo using image1e_8x8pixel.bmp and
image2e_8x8pixel.bmp Grayscale mode, delta frame
generation
15
Demo using stripes1_64x64.bmp and
stripes2_64x64.bmp Grayscale mode, delta frame
generation
16
Demo using tea.bmp (for both images) Image
processing, colour mode, USB port (fast !),
invert colours
17
Demo using colour8x8Image1 and colour8x8Image2
.bmp Image processing, colour mode, serial
port, delta fram generation
18
Alternative DSP Functions

• A wide variety of DSP functions can be included,
  supported by CSR
• and SRAM resources, e.g.,
• Audio processing
• Image processing
• Encryption, coding algorithms
• Games
• The DSPBlk and GUI enables straightforward
  implementation of such projects

19
SRAM structure and DSP Delta Image Task Execution
Image 1 in SRAM quadrant 0, image 2 in SRAM
quadrant 1Quadrant size 64k 32-bit words
Perform delta frame generation, i.e., (image 2
image 1)Write result to SRAM quadrant 3 (same
size as original images)
SRAM Memory Map
11 1111 1111 1111 1111 (3FFFFh) 11 0000 0000
0000 0000 (30000h) 10 1111 1111 1111 1111
(2FFFFh) 10 0000 0000 0000 0000 (20000h)01
1111 1111 1111 1111 (1FFFFh) 01 0000
0000 0000 0000 (10000h) 00 1111 1111 1111 1111
(0FFFFh) 00 0000 0000 0000 0000 (00000h)
Quadrant 3 Quadrant 2 Quadrant
1 Quadrant 0(64k x 32-bitlocations)
max 64k x 32-bits
0044440 (delta result)
FF8888FF (image 2 data longword)
FF4444FF (image 1 data longword)