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fpgalabview
Blup1980
Blup1980

Reputation: 397

How to simulate an external piece of hardware during the development of a LabView FPGA project

I am working on a PXI system from National Instruments. It has an FPGA card that I have connected externally to a sensor.

I would like to know how to perform a "cycle accurate" simulation that includes a custom external stimulus that emulates the sensor.

There is a lot of example for simulating the labView -> FPGA -> labView interfaces, but nothing for LabView -> FPGA -> external hardware.

If it hasn't been a NI FPGA system, I would have written an HDL test bench for that, but within the NI FPGA framework, I can't figure out where to put my test bench.

In fact there is a place to put an HDL test bench, but as I said, the only available interface to test is the one between the labView code and the FPGA, and not between the FPGA and the external FPGA pins.

Thanks

Upvotes: 1

Views: 323

Answers (1)

Martin Thompson
Martin Thompson

Reputation: 16812

This is a right pain (IMHO).

Last time I used Labview FPGA (admittedly a couple of years ago) it had no clue about cycle accurate simulation.

I had to build ordinary labview "testbenches" around each Sub VI - the Sub VI goes in a loop within the testbench VI.

Then link all the subvis together within single-cycle-timed-loops at the top-level. That top level is then not simulate-able, you just have to build it and see :( As you probably agree - this is very alien to the usual FPGA flow.

Simulating right up to the pins (and then the hardware outside also) is just not possible (as far as I know, yet) - it is promised at some point...

Upvotes: 1

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