Forum Discussion

Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
13 years ago

Altera SoC: What is "Peripheral FPGA Clocks" for?

Hi everyone,

I want to use the I2C Controller on HPS to control a slave connected to the FPGA. So for my understanding I can use I2C pin multiplexing with option "FPGA" while configuring the HPS System to make the I2C Controller available to the FPGA. After this configuration, the i2c0_clk clock frequency can be modified. But what is this clock for? Or in general what is "Peripheral FPGA Clocks" for?

Also I expected only two pins that could be connected to the FPGA, namely SCL and SDA but there are 4 Pins in total that are generated from Qsys:

hps_0_i2c0_out_data : out std_logic; -- out_data (is this sda_out?)

hps_0_i2c0_sda : in std_logic := 'X'; -- sda

hps_0_i2c0_clk_clk : out std_logic; -- clk (peripheral fpga clock??)

hps_0_i2c0_scl_in_clk : in std_logic := 'X'; -- clk

I attached a screenshot for the configuration.

https://www.alteraforum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7499

I really appreciate your help!

Hanel

2 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    13 years ago

    Basically you have to create the tristate logic using FPGA resources. I2C assumes that there are pullups on the bus lines so you just have to control when the pin is an input or driving out ground (driving out high is taken care of by the pullup on the bus).

    Here is the mapping:

    _sda --> this is the input data from the SDA pin

    _out_data --> this is the output enable that you should use to drive a logic '0' out of the SDA pin

    _scl_in_clk --> this is the input clock from the SCL pin

    _clk_clk --> this is the output enable that you should use to drive the SCL pin

    So you would need something like this (Verilog.... my VHDL is too rusty):

    assign sda_pin = (out_data == 1)? 1'b0 : 1'bZ; // so when the output enable is high drive out a zero, other wise go Hi-Z

    assign hps_0_i2c0_sda = sda_pin;

    Those peripheral clock settings are used to provide the tools information about the clock rates of the data moving back and forth between the FPGA fabric (and eventually I/O) and the HPS so that the on-chip constraints can be set accordingly. Since cores like the I2C are not parameterizable IP (hard silicon) this is the only way for the user to tell the tools what frequency they plan to operate them at.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    13 years ago

    Oh and keep an eye out for a new SoC forum I'll be creating soon, I don't know where I'm putting it yet in the Altera forum but it should make asking questions like these a little easier.