Universal interface on Zynq® SoC with CAN, RS-232, Ethernet and AXI GPIO for instrumentation & control

Abstract

This paper describes an application developed on the latest Zynq®-7000 All Programmable SoC (AP SoC) [1] devices which integrate the software programmability of an ARM®-based processor with the hardware programmability of an FPGA, on a single device. In this paper we have implemented application which uses various interfaces like CAN, RS-232, Ethernet and AXI GPIO, so that our host application running on PC in LabVIEW can communicates with any hardware which has at least any one of the available interface. Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoCs (System On Chip) infuse customizable intelligence into today’s embedded systems to suit your unique application requirements. This family of FPGA is meant for high end application because it has huge resources on single chip. It offers you to make your own custom hardware IP, in fact we have made our custom IP called myIP in our design. The beauty of this chip is that it can write drivers for your custom IP which has AXI bus layer attached. After exporting the hardware information to the Software Development Kit (SDK), the tool is able to write drivers for your custom IP. This simplifies your development to a great extent. In a way this application provides the universal interfacing option to user. User can also write the digital data on the GPIO (General Purpose Input Output) through LabVIEW Test application GUI. This project can be used for remote control and monitor the data over Ethernet or CAN network.