streaming data to an FPGA

[SVJ]

Hello All,

I wish to send data from an array (approx 1.6 million values)  to an FPGA Sub VI at a rate of 100Hz. Can anyone suggest how i can go about doing it?

The target is on a 7831R board and I am using Labview 8.0. I came across DMA examples but they are all for reading data from the FPGA and not the other way.

Any help will be appreciated. 

Regards,

Shailesh.

[JohnSki]

Hello Shailesh,

Although I haven't done this in any application, I would think you could just create a DMA FIFO and make it type 'Host to Target - DMA' instead of the 'Target to Host - DMA' type that you probably saw in the examples.  That is the DMA FIFO I have used in the past, but I can go into a project and create this type of FIFO and can then read the FIFO in in my FPGA code. I would then just write to that FIFO in my Host app with a timed loop at the specified rate.  I am using 8.5, but I do not think that should matter.  However, I could be wrong on that one.  Let me know if this helps at all.

Regards,

John

[SVJ]

Hello John,

Many thanks for your reply. I am afraid Labview 8.0 does not provide the features that you have mentioned. I have however thought of an alternative solution and would post it here just incase someone faces a similar issue in the future.

Shailesh.

[JohnSki]

No problem.  Sorry to hear that 8.0 doesnt support that feature - I havent used that version in quite awhile and couldnt remember if it did or not.  Glad to hear that you found a solution.

Regards,

John

[SVJ]

Hello All,

I have a follow up question to this. I am planning to use the on board memory on the FPGA that can be allocated using the memory expansion utility of the LabVIEW FPGA Module. Does anyone know how these memory blocks (I am using a 16 X 1K Block) can be written to at runtime? I dont mean single locations as the examples show, rather I would like to rewrite the entire 1024 values in one go. This sounds like an application for DMA FIFOs but I am using LabVIEW 8.0 where this is not an option. Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

Shailesh.