FPGA VHDL

[ahmelsayed]

Hello There,

I have Spartan 3E and already proremmed it using LabVIEW but i have another question: Is it Possible to Program it using VHDL Code with ISE and access its channels using LabVIEW only for displaying Signals not for programming?

Thanks in advance
Ahmed 

[Dragis]

I am assuming you are using National Instruments hardware. If so, you cannot directly program the FPGA from ISE. You can, however, import VHDL using any of the various IP integration nodes including the CLIP and IPIN features. In theory, you could have the entire program minus the IO written in VHDL, I just wouldn't recommend it ; )

[ahmelsayed]

first of all thanks for your reply.

It is not NI hardwre; it is a xilinx spartan 3e starter kit soo it can be programmed using ISE. so is it possible to access its channels using LabVIEW without reprogrammed it?

[Doug-B]

I do not believe there is any way to get direct access to the FPGA chip in LabVIEW without actually programming the FPGA in LabVIEW. It sounds like you are basically just trying to monitor the FPGA that has already been programmed in a different environment. There is not really any way for LabVIEW to monitor those FPGA lines without actually programming the FPGA to do so in LabVIEW. 

Regards,

Doug B

[Alex.T]

With the FPGA Starter Kit, you are able to target the device from the Xilinx ISE Environment using standard VHDL/Verilog. Both LabVIEW FPGA and Xilinx ISE after the compilation process produce a bitfile that takes full control of the FPGA. This allows no room for 'integration' between both areas of code unless they're part of the same code architecture.

Your best bet in order to use LabVIEW to monitor internal signals about your FPGA is to import your VHDL into the LabVIEW Environment via the CLIP node, as Dragis mentioned. This way you can use conventional LabVIEW FPGA programming to analyse the data produced from your VHDL entities. Either that or create standard HDL testbenches within Xilinx ISE.