FX3 boot from SPI and configure FPGA

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Anonymous
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Hi

   

I want to store the FX3 firmware and FPGA bitstream in the same SPI flash. The FX3 should then boot from SPI then allow the FPGA to configure. I would also like to be able to update the data in the flash using a Windows app. I know control centre allows the SPI flash to be written, but in a real app the device would enumerate without the boot loader. So I think that code inside the FX3 firmware would need to take care of writing data from Windows to the flash memory. Or maybe there is an alternative?

   

Thanks

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Anonymous
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        You have to implement the SPI Master in your FX3 Firmware. After booting up the FX3 you have to configure the FPGA via Slave Serial interface (similar to SPI) with the bitstream sored inside the SPI flash at higher address. With the SPI master firmware you can reprogram the FLASH with your host software. But be aware of the hardware limitation: You cannot use the hardware SPI if your GPIF is configured in 32 bit data width. Also you cannot directly let the FPGA boot from FLASH as both, the FX3 and the FPGA expects the bitstream stored at address 0 in master spi boot mode.   
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