This week was predominantly focused on set up and research related tasks. In terms of set-up tasks, I set up the website for the rest of the team and also picked up the Kintex-7 FPGA board from the Academic Center. In terms of the research related tasks, the primary goal of the past week was to learn the UART communication protocol. I was able to familiarize myself with the protocol and be able to understand how the FPGA and the host computer will interact with one another. I was able to find code snippets that use the python library pySerial to transmit data from a computer port with UART. On the other hand, I was also able to find Verilog code snippets that resemble a UART transmitter and receiver. So, I was able to finish the task for learning the protocol.
However, this week was also allocated for beginning to implement the logic. In order to do so, I tried to run the BIST (built-in self-test) on the Kintex-7 board but am currently running into issues because the board doesn’t appear to be transmitting the expected data to the host computer. Furthermore, programming the board requires Vivado, which is not available on MacOS, so I had to partition my MacBook and install bootcamp before I could install Vivado. For the upcoming week, I plan on resolving the issues and being able to successfully run the BIST and running through the UART option that is present. After which, I plan on finishing the implementation of the logic to communicate between the board and computer, which will allow me to stay on task with the schedule.