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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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9 years ago

Custom accelerator circuit design with DMA

Good Morning,

I am running a C program on Linux (builded with buildroot) on the HPS (Cyclone V, DE1-SoC Board), now I want to replace a function with a custom FPGA circuit.

This function reads two matrix, then gives a resulting matrix. This custom hcircuit read the two matrix from the SDRAM of the HPS, than rewrite the result on the same SDRAM.

1- I want to know if I can use a DMA controller to do this or I must transfer the data using the CPU.

2- If I can use the DMA controller, is there any documentation about it, how to use it with a custom circuit.

Thanks

2 Replies

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

    The DMA on the Cyclone V can definitely deal with this.

    I can't comment on how to implement this on Linux, but here's the key information for a "bare-metal" implementation.

    - The DMA is the "ARM PrimeCell" PL330 module from ARM. You can retrieve the technical manual from the ARM web-site.

    - The Cyclone V handbook also has a section that greatly help understand how to use & program the PL330.

    - Your requirements involves triggers and these are listed in the DMA section of the Cyclone V handbook.

    - You can find the base address of the DMA registers in the Appendix section of the Cyclone V handbook.

    - You should be able to use the hwlib in the SocEDS do program the PL330 for your specific needs; if not, then it should be easily modifiable

    Regards