Can LabView FPGA module work with non-NI FPGAs?

[weizbox]

Simple Question: Can the LabView FPGA Module work with other FPGAs? Im assuming yes, but id like ot make sure first. Normaly I go with NI for most of my stuff, but they just are lacking in the FPGA hardware for what I need, but Im accustumed to LabView so I would like to stick with that to program it.

Thanks!
-Mark

[Christian_L]

No. At this time the LabVIEW FPGA module can only be used to target the RIO hardware available from NI.

Can you describe what features you need that is not provided through the RIO hardware?

Christian L

[weizbox]

Im looking to use 5 ADC Channels running at a rate of 100MSPS or more with an onboard FPGA with around 1,000,000 Gates. The best card NI offers has a rate of 200kS/s, is too slow for what we plan on using it for, so thats why I looked to other providers instead. The analong outputs and the digital lines on the PXI-7831R would be great to use as well since at the current moment we would be having to use a cheap DAQ card in order to get one AO and a few DIOs since the cards we found that meet our speed requirements dont have those options. The NI card would be great is the rate was increased to 100MSPS, but unfortunetly its not and we really need a RT application. Id love to stick to LabView for this but it looks like I may be having to learn some VHDL. 😕

[weizbox]

Another Option I was thinking about was to use the NI PXI-7831R as a DAQ and FPGA, and as well use the NI-5122 running at 100 MS/s, and somehow send the digitalized data over to the FPGA over the PXI bus for analysis.

Going at a rate of 100MS/s on two channels with the digitizer, would it be possible to transmit that information fast enough over the PXI bus and not end up losing data?

Also, if I were to keep my DAQ card (PXI-6025E) and use the cheaper FPGA (PXI-7811R) and as well stick with the Digitizer (NI-5122); would it be possible to transmit both digitizer channels @100MS/s as well as up to three 200kS/s analong input channels from the DAQ, all to the FPGA and be able to opperate at real time? Basicly, could the PXI bus handle all this?

As y
ou probably noticed, speed is a big issue here. The pulses that I will be looking at will be coming in at about 1,000 or more times per second, and only being about 1us in width, down to even 100ns. And it wont just be one signal coming in, there are are many of them, so I need to process these signals as fast as i can.


Thank you for help!

-Mark

[Christian_L]

Hello Mark,

There are customers that are using external faster ADC chips with the FPGA card. Using the DIO lines they communicate with the ADC and read back the data. The fastest ADCs that I'm aware of being used that way are 20 or 40 MHz. Of course the rate is limited by the clock rate of the FPGA and how fast it can read/write the DIO lines for communication. By overclocking the FPGA to 80 or 120 MHz it may be possible to pass the 40 MHz limit, but it will depend on the individual VI whether the compiler can achieve the faster clock rate.

Christian L
NI Consulting Services

[weizbox]

One more question...

If I were to get another FPGA Board and program it useing the tools they give me (not LabView), would it be possible for me to communicate with it using LabView, would there be any additional purchases that would have to be made outside of LabView 7.1 Full?

Thank you once again,

-Mark

[Christian_L]

I saw your other request regarding using the digitizer with the FPGA card and need to do a bit of investigation to see if there is any way to pass data directly to the FPGA. Right now I would say this is not possible.

Christian L

[Christian_L]

Using LabVIEW and LabVIEW RT you can access the registers on any PCI/PXI card using the NI-VISA driver. NI-VISA also allows you to handle interrupts and DMA data. For interrupts you will not actually write an interrupt service routine (ISR) in LabVIEW. Instead the VISA driver will acknowledge the interrupt to the card and then pass a VISA event to the LabVIEW application letting the application know that it needs to process the interrupt. Detailed information about this type of programming is available in the following documents.

Using the VISA Driver Development Wizard and NI-VISA to Register-Level Program a PXI/PCI Device unde...

Configuring LabVIEW Real-Time and NI-VISA to Recognize a Third Party Device

Developing a LabVIEW Real-Time Driver for a PXI or Compact PCI Device

Porting a Windows PCI Device Driver to LabVIEW Real-Time 

Considerations in Implementing LabVIEW Real-Time Drivers

Christian L

[weizbox]

Thank you VERY much. Your helping to put me in the right direction and starting to understand a lot more in this area. Thats great that I can use LabView to work with an FPGA if needed to, which is looking like the way to go right now. Looks like I may need to find one with a ADC on it as well, too bad you guys dont make them faster. Let me know if they do tho!

Thanks again, you were tons of help!

-Mark

[weizbox]

Just looking back on this, might be a stupid question but I would like to be positive about this. When you said "LabVIEW and LabVIEW RT ", do you mean I need LV WITH the LVRT module, or just LV OR LVRT to do this.

Thanks!
-Mark