Merging BRAM Data Into Bitstreams 11/8/10 8:36 PM

Merging BRAM Data Into Bitstreams

Introduction
This text is a short discussion of a way to merge BRAM initialization data into bitstreams for Xilinx
FPGAs. My intention was to avoid the lengthy resynthesis plus P&R of whole designs when the software
code inside a BRAM has changed.
Browsing through the Xilinx flow docs revealed a tool called data2mem which promises to take BRAM
initialization data and merge this into a previously generated .bit configuration file. Unfortunately, the
available information is quite brief so a couple of trial-and-error iterations had to be run through until I
got everything working as expected. Following you'll find some notes about what I found out so far.

Starting Point
Everything below was done with Xilinx WebPACK 8.1-2, torturing a Spartan 3 device (xc3s1000-4-
fg456 to be precise). The design contains a Z80 core (T80 from opencores.org) which fetches its code
from a 4 k ROM located at address 0x0000 on the processor bus. For developing code, SDCC is in place
while srecord is used to postprocess the binary and hex files.
It has proven necessary to partition the 4 k ROM into two RAMB16_S9 primitives instantiated directly in
the VHDL design hierarchy. Assigning them unambiguous instance names - here they will be called
rom_low_b and rom_high_b. I didn't take measures to initialize them directly in the VHDL code. Just for
the reason to have a clean and empty configuration bit-file as a starting point.

Preparing data2mem
Basically, one requires two inputs for data2mem:

1. Initialization code in "MEM" format.

2. A so called "BMM" file describing the internal memory layout.

First, I thought that converting my binaries or hex-files to this MEM format might be the biggest
obstacle. But soon I discovered that MEM is simply the Verilog VMEM format, commonly used in the
Verilog world of designing. Glad to see that srecord supports this format for reading and writing. So all
that is needed fits in one single command line:

$ srec_cat rom_code.bin -binary -o rom_code.mem -vmem 8

It's maybe worth noting that rom_code.bin has been filled to the full 4 k using srec_cat's -fill option.

Generating the BMM file resulted in a lot more guesswork because I could not find an exhaustive
documentation for these files.
Starting from data2mem -h, I experimented with the -mf option until the tool produced something that
looked reasonable.

$ data2mem -mf p z80map PPC405 0 \

a rom_code b 0x0000 8 \

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Merging BRAM Data Into Bitstreams 11/8/10 8:36 PM

s RAMB16 0x0800 8 rom_low_b \

s RAMB16 0x0800 8 rom_high_b \
-o p rom_code.bmm

The result is
// BM M L OC an n o t a t i o n f i l e .
//
// Re l ea se 8. 1 . 0 2 i - D a t a 2 M E M I . 2 7 , bu i ld 1. 4 .5 J a n 1 1, 20 0 6
// Co p yr ig h t ( c ) 1 9 9 5 - 2 0 0 6 X i l i n x , I nc . A ll ri gh t s r es e rv e d.
//
// Cr e at ed on 0 8 / 2 1 / 0 6 0 1 : 2 6 a m
//

/ / /// / // // / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // /
//
/ / Pr o ce ss o r ' z 8 0 m a p ' , I D 0 , m e m o r y ma p .
//
/ / /// / // // / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // /

A D DRE S S_ MA P z 8 0 m a p P P C 4 0 5 0

/ / // // / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // // / / /
//
/ / P ro c es s o r ' z 8 0 m a p ' a d d r e s s s p ac e ' r om _ co de ' 0 x 00 0 00 0 00 : 0x 00 0 00 F FF (4 KB ).
//
/ / // // / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // // / / /

A D DR ES S _S P A C E r o m _ c o d e C O M B I N E D [0 x 00 0 00 0 00 :0 x 00 0 00 F FF ]

// / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // // / / / / / //
//
// Ad d r e s s r a n g e 0 x 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 : 0x 0 00 0 07 F F (2 KB ) .
//
// / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // // / / / / / //

AD D RE S S _ R A N G E R A M B 1 6
BUS_BLOCK
rom_low_b0 [7:0];
END_BUS_BLOCK;
EN D _A D D R E S S _ R A N G E ;

// / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // // / / / / / //
//
// Ad d r e s s r a n g e 0 x 0 0 0 0 0 8 0 0 : 0x 0 00 0 0F F F (2 KB ) .
//
// / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // // / / / / / //

AD D RE S S _ R A N G E R A M B 1 6
BUS_BLOCK
rom_high_b0 [7:0];
END_BUS_BLOCK;
EN D _A D D R E S S _ R A N G E ;
E N D_ AD D RE S S _ S P A C E ;

E N D_A D DR ES S _M A P ;

Data2mem appends a 0 to the instance names which has to be removed before adding the file to the ISE
project. Bitgen is then supposed to annotate the location of the two BRAMs to this file. In fact, bitgen
copies the contents of this file to rom_code_bd.bmm and inserts PLACED = X1Y6 attributes to the
rom_low_b lines. Unfortunately, bitgen annotates only the first instance and skips rom_high_b for some
reason.
After fiddeling with the file, I could find a combination that finally works. Just merge the two separate
ADDRESS_RANGE definitions into a single one:

/ / BM M L OC an n o t a t i o n f i l e .
//

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Merging BRAM Data Into Bitstreams 11/8/10 8:36 PM

//
/ / Re l ea se 8. 1 . 0 2 i - D a t a 2 M E M I . 2 7 , bu i ld 1. 4 .5 J a n 1 1, 20 0 6
/ / Co p yr ig h t ( c ) 1 9 9 5 - 2 0 0 6 X i l i n x , I nc . A ll ri gh t s r es e rv e d.
//
/ / Cr e at ed on 0 8 / 2 1 / 0 6 0 1 : 2 6 a m
//

/ / /// / // // / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // /
//
/ / Pr o ce ss o r ' z 8 0 m a p ' , I D 0 , m e m o r y ma p .
//
/ / /// / // // / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // /

A D DRE S S_ MA P z 8 0 m a p P P C 4 0 5 0

/ / // // / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // // / / /
//
/ / P ro c es s o r ' z 8 0 m a p ' a d d r e s s s p ac e ' r om _ co de ' 0 x 00 0 00 0 00 : 0x 00 0 00 F FF (4 KB ).
//
/ / // // / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // // / / /

A D DR ES S _S P A C E r o m _ c o d e C O M B I N E D [0 x 00 0 00 0 00 :0 x 00 0 00 F FF ]

// / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // // / / / / / //
//
// Ad d r e s s r a n g e 0 x 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 : 0x 0 00 0 07 F F (2 KB ) .
//
// / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // // / / / / / //

AD D RE S S _ R A N G E R A M B 1 6
BUS_BLOCK
rom_low_b [7:0];
END_BUS_BLOCK;

// / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // // / / / / / //
//
// Ad d r e s s r a n g e 0 x 0 0 0 0 0 8 0 0 : 0x 0 00 0 0F F F (2 KB ) .
//
// / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // / // // / // / // / // / // // / / / / / //

BUS_BLOCK
rom_high_b [7:0];
END_BUS_BLOCK;
EN D _A D D R E S S _ R A N G E ;
E N D_ AD D RE S S _ S P A C E ;

E N D_A D DR ES S _M A P ;

Now bitgen assigns the locations properly to each of the RAMB16 instances:

rom_low_b [7:0] PLACED = X1Y6;

...
rom_high_b [7:0] PLACED = X1Y7;

Running data2mem
As written above, bitgen generates an annotated BMM file named rom_code_bd.bmm that will be used
for the further steps with data2mem. First, one can inspect the initial bit-file and check the configuration
contents of the BRAMs in there:

$ data2mem -bm rom_code_bd.bmm -bt design.bit -d > design.txt

The BRAMs identified by rom_code_bd.bmm will be marked inside design.txt so it's easy to see their
contents is all 0 for now.

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Merging BRAM Data Into Bitstreams 11/8/10 8:36 PM

Finally merging rom_code.mem into the bit-file is a pice of cake:

$ data2mem -bm rom_code_bd.bmm -bt design.bit -bd rom_code.mem -o b final.bit

A quick check with data2mem -d on final.bit reveals that the BRAMs contain the requested data.
Done.

--
August 2006
Arnim Läuger
arnim.laeuger <at> gmx.net

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