The other day I wasted hours trying to figure out why my peripheral wasn’t properly clocking Chipscope. Basically I had my peripheral generating a clock and data which I plugged directly into a Chipscope ILA peripheral. When I looked at the Chipscope data, it was sort of random but sort of looked right at the same time.
I eventually realized that in my MPD file for the peripheral, I had forgotten to specify that my clock output was in fact a “clock” output by using the SIGIS = CLK parameter.
Look at an example MPD file for a PLB peripheral. I highlighted all the SIGIS = CLK lines to show you what I mean:
BEGIN my_multiplier
## Peripheral Options
OPTION IPTYPE = PERIPHERAL
OPTION IMP_NETLIST = TRUE
OPTION HDL = VHDL
OPTION IP_GROUP = MICROBLAZE:PPC:USER
## Bus Interfaces
BUS_INTERFACE BUS = SPLB, BUS_STD = PLBV46, BUS_TYPE = SLAVE
## Generics for VHDL or Parameters for Verilog
PARAMETER C_BASEADDR = 0xffffffff, DT = std_logic_vector, PAIR = C_HIGHADDR, ADDRESS = BASE, BUS = SPLB
PARAMETER C_HIGHADDR = 0x00000000, DT = std_logic_vector, PAIR = C_BASEADDR, ADDRESS = HIGH, BUS = SPLB
PARAMETER C_SPLB_AWIDTH = 32, DT = INTEGER, BUS = SPLB
PARAMETER C_SPLB_DWIDTH = 128, DT = INTEGER, BUS = SPLB
PARAMETER C_SPLB_NUM_MASTERS = 8, DT = INTEGER, BUS = SPLB
PARAMETER C_SPLB_MID_WIDTH = 3, DT = INTEGER, BUS = SPLB
PARAMETER C_SPLB_NATIVE_DWIDTH = 32, DT = INTEGER, BUS = SPLB
PARAMETER C_SPLB_P2P = 0, DT = INTEGER, BUS = SPLB
PARAMETER C_SPLB_SUPPORT_BURSTS = 0, DT = INTEGER, BUS = SPLB
PARAMETER C_SPLB_SMALLEST_MASTER = 32, DT = INTEGER, BUS = SPLB
PARAMETER C_SPLB_CLK_PERIOD_PS = 10000, DT = INTEGER, BUS = SPLB
PARAMETER C_INCLUDE_DPHASE_TIMER = 1, DT = INTEGER
PARAMETER C_FAMILY = virtex5, DT = STRING
## Ports
PORT SPLB_Clk = "", DIR = I, SIGIS = CLK, BUS = SPLB
PORT SPLB_Rst = SPLB_Rst, DIR = I, SIGIS = RST, BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_ABus = PLB_ABus, DIR = I, VEC = [0:31], BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_UABus = PLB_UABus, DIR = I, VEC = [0:31], BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_PAValid = PLB_PAValid, DIR = I, BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_SAValid = PLB_SAValid, DIR = I, BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_rdPrim = PLB_rdPrim, DIR = I, BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_wrPrim = PLB_wrPrim, DIR = I, BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_masterID = PLB_masterID, DIR = I, VEC = [0:(C_SPLB_MID_WIDTH-1)], BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_abort = PLB_abort, DIR = I, BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_busLock = PLB_busLock, DIR = I, BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_RNW = PLB_RNW, DIR = I, BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_BE = PLB_BE, DIR = I, VEC = [0:((C_SPLB_DWIDTH/8)-1)], BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_MSize = PLB_MSize, DIR = I, VEC = [0:1], BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_size = PLB_size, DIR = I, VEC = [0:3], BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_type = PLB_type, DIR = I, VEC = [0:2], BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_lockErr = PLB_lockErr, DIR = I, BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_wrDBus = PLB_wrDBus, DIR = I, VEC = [0:(C_SPLB_DWIDTH-1)], BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_wrBurst = PLB_wrBurst, DIR = I, BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_rdBurst = PLB_rdBurst, DIR = I, BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_wrPendReq = PLB_wrPendReq, DIR = I, BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_rdPendReq = PLB_rdPendReq, DIR = I, BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_wrPendPri = PLB_wrPendPri, DIR = I, VEC = [0:1], BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_rdPendPri = PLB_rdPendPri, DIR = I, VEC = [0:1], BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_reqPri = PLB_reqPri, DIR = I, VEC = [0:1], BUS = SPLB
PORT PLB_TAttribute = PLB_TAttribute, DIR = I, VEC = [0:15], BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_addrAck = Sl_addrAck, DIR = O, BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_SSize = Sl_SSize, DIR = O, VEC = [0:1], BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_wait = Sl_wait, DIR = O, BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_rearbitrate = Sl_rearbitrate, DIR = O, BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_wrDAck = Sl_wrDAck, DIR = O, BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_wrComp = Sl_wrComp, DIR = O, BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_wrBTerm = Sl_wrBTerm, DIR = O, BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_rdDBus = Sl_rdDBus, DIR = O, VEC = [0:(C_SPLB_DWIDTH-1)], BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_rdWdAddr = Sl_rdWdAddr, DIR = O, VEC = [0:3], BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_rdDAck = Sl_rdDAck, DIR = O, BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_rdComp = Sl_rdComp, DIR = O, BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_rdBTerm = Sl_rdBTerm, DIR = O, BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_MBusy = Sl_MBusy, DIR = O, VEC = [0:(C_SPLB_NUM_MASTERS-1)], BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_MWrErr = Sl_MWrErr, DIR = O, VEC = [0:(C_SPLB_NUM_MASTERS-1)], BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_MRdErr = Sl_MRdErr, DIR = O, VEC = [0:(C_SPLB_NUM_MASTERS-1)], BUS = SPLB
PORT Sl_MIRQ = Sl_MIRQ, DIR = O, VEC = [0:(C_SPLB_NUM_MASTERS-1)], BUS = SPLB
My lesson:
When your peripheral generates a clock, make sure you specify that it’s a clock in your MPD file with SIGIS = CLK!