TinyXVC - minimalistic XVC (Xilinx Virtual Cable) server for Linux

Purpose

TinyXVC allows you to connect Xilinx FPGAs to a Vivado or ISE without using expensive Xilinx Platform Cable.

Instead it provides a "virtual cable" on top of an affordable FTDI chip that connects FPGA' JTAG TAP pins to your computer USB. This is the only additional hardware that one needs to start! Just use any of a myriad of breakout boards or cables that feature MPSSE-capable FTDI chip (already tested with FT232H, FT2232H):

connect breakout board/cable to your PC USB
connect JTAG pins (TCK, TMS, TDI, TDO) of FTDI chip to JTAG TAP of your FPGA (ensure first that it tolerates 3.3V IO levels from FTDI, otherwise you may need a shifter)

It is even easier if your FPGA development board already has integrated FTDI.

How Fast Is It?

On Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS, Intel® Core™ i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz × 8 host, using 100ns TCK period:

to program configuration memory for Spartan 6 XC6SLX9 (via iMPACT) - instant (less than 2 sec)
to program configuration memory for Artix 7 XC77A50T (via Vivado) - ~4.5 sec
to program QSPI flash indirectly for Artix 7 XC77A50T (via Vivado) - ~125 sec

(Indeed numbers depend mostly on TCK period, dev machine CPU speed is way less important.)

How To Use?

Once FPGA is connected to a PC via appropriate cable or dongle, start txvc with a proper options. Assuming we use FT232H cable to talk to FPGA, it can be as a simple as:

$ txvc -p ft232h
            txvc: I: Found alias ft232h (FT232H-based USB to JTAG cable),
            txvc: I: Using profile ftdi-generic:device=ft232h,vid=0403,pid=6014,channel=A,read_latency_millis=1,d4=ignored,d5=ignored,d6=ignored,d7=ignored,
     ftdiGeneric: I: Using d2xx driver v.1.4.24
     ftdiGeneric: I: Using device "Single RS232-HS" (serial number: "")
          server: I: Listening for incoming connections at 127.0.0.1:2542...

When it is listening for client to connect - open Vivado' Hardware Manager and via "Open target" connect to a virtual cable at address that is shown in txvc log. If using ISE - launch iMPACT and via "Cable setup..." choose "Cable Plug-in" with the next configuration:

xilinx_xvc host=127.0.0.1:2542 disableversioncheck=true

That's it, now try to upload your designs to an FPGA!

To get more info about available options:

$ txvc -h

Limitations

Currently txvc supports only MPSSE-capable FTDI chips as an intermediate between FPGA and dev machine, though other "backends" can be added easily. Supported and tested chips are:

FT232H
FT2232H

Other models should also work but were not tested.

How To Build?

Prebuilt packages can be found here. Note that attached devices should be re-pluged once package is installed.

Build process was tested on Ubuntu 20.04 but should work on other distros as well.

Install tools and dependencies:

$ sudo apt install build-essential cmake

Once sources are checked out, build with next:

$ cd TinyXVC
$ mkdir build && cd $_
$ cmake ../ && make all
$ txvc/txvc -h

Troubleshooting

You may need an appropriate udev rules to be able to open USB devices. This may be needed if running locally built txvc or using device with non-standard IDs. In this case follow instructions from udev/.

Supported Boards/Existing profiles

Boards - Profile

Numato Lab Mimas A7 FPGA Development Board - mimas_a7
Numato Lab Mimas Mini FPGA Development Board - mimas_a7_mini
Numato Lab Narvi Sparten 7 FPGA Module - narvi

Generic cables - Profile

FT232H cable - ft232h

ser-gik / TinyXVC