Run C Programs on Microwatt

Microwatt is a VHDL2008-based POWER ISA 3.0 core, originally written by Anton Blanchard, supporting Linux, MicroPython, and Zephyr RTOS.

It is also supported in FuseSoC for quick simulation and FPGA bringup!

Steps

Create a new directory

mkdir /home/$USER/uwatt
cd /home/$USER/uwatt

Download PowerPC cross-toolchain

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NOTE

You can select powerpc64le-power8 and glibc on toolchains.bootlin.com or get the stable version as of date directly with

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wget https://toolchains.bootlin.com/downloads/releases/toolchains/powerpc64le-power8/tarballs/powerpc64le-power8--glibc--stable-2020.02-2.tar.bz2

tar -xvf powerpc64le-power8--glibc--stable-2020.02-2.tar.bz2

export PATH=$PATH:/home/$USER/uwatt/powerpc64le-power8--glibc--stable-2020.02-2/bin

export CROSS_COMPILE=powerpc64le-linux-

Build Micropython

cd micropython/ports/powerpc
sudo apt install make
make -j$(nproc)
cd ../../../

Build GHDL from source

sudo apt install llvm clang gnat zlib1g-dev

Install gnat4.9 packages (required by GHDL):

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/g/gnat-4.9/gnat-4.9-base_4.9.3-3ubuntu5_amd64.deb
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/g/gnat-4.9/libgnat-4.9_4.9.3-3ubuntu5_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i ./gnat-4.9-base_4.9.3-3ubuntu5_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i ./libgnat-4.9_4.9.3-3ubuntu5_amd64.deb

Clone GHDL from GitHub

NOTE

v0.37 does not support llvm10, in which case you will need to specify the older version of llvm above. The master branch doesn't have this issue.

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cd ghdl
mkdir -p /home/$USER/uwatt/ghdl_build
mkdir build && cd build
../configure --with-llvm-config --prefix=/home/$USER/uwatt/ghdl_build
make
make install
cd ../../

After building, add ghdl to the path with

export PATH=$PATH:/home/$USER/uwatt/ghdl_build/bin

Build Microwatt!

cd microwatt
make

Link Micropython image

ln -s micropython/firmware.bin main_ram.bin

Run Microwatt

It sends all output logs to /dev/null

./core_tb > /dev/null

Running bare-metal C code on Microwatt

cd ~/uwatt/microwatt/hello_world 
mv -f Makefile1 Makefile
make
cd ..
./core_tb > /dev/null

Run joel_test.c which prints sum of square's of 1 to 10 using c.

cd hello_world
make clean
make FILE=joel_test
cd ..
./core_tb > /dev/null

To test other functionalities of softcore run other c programs in hello_world folder

cd hello_world
make clean
make FILE=sneha
cd ..
./core_tb > /dev/null

Compile Latest Versions

Create a new directory

mkdir /home/$USER/uwatt
cd /home/$USER/uwatt

Download PowerPC cross-toolchain

wget https://toolchains.bootlin.com/downloads/releases/toolchains/powerpc64le-power8/tarballs/powerpc64le-power8--glibc--stable-2022.08-1.tar.bz2

tar -xvf powerpc64le-power8--glibc--stable-2022.08-1.tar.bz2

export PATH=$PATH:/home/$USER/uwatt/powerpc64le-power8--glibc--stable-2022.08-1/bin

export CROSS_COMPILE=powerpc64le-linux-

Build Micropython

git clone https://github.com/micropython/micropython.git
cd micropython/ports/powerpc
sudo apt install make
make -j$(nproc)
cd ../../../

Build GHDL from source

sudo apt install llvm clang gnat zlib1g-dev

Install gnat4.9 packages (needed by GHDL):

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/g/gnat-4.9/gnat-4.9-base_4.9.3-3ubuntu5_amd64.deb
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/g/gnat-4.9/libgnat-4.9_4.9.3-3ubuntu5_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i ./gnat-4.9-base_4.9.3-3ubuntu5_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i ./libgnat-4.9_4.9.3-3ubuntu5_amd64.deb

Clone GHDL from GitHub

git clone https://github.com/ghdl/ghdl.git
cd ghdl
mkdir -p /home/$USER/uwatt/ghdl_build
mkdir build && cd build
../configure --with-llvm-config --prefix=/home/$USER/uwatt/ghdl_build
make
make install
cd ../../

After building, add ghdl to the path with

export PATH=$PATH:/home/$USER/uwatt/ghdl_build/bin

Build Microwatt!

git clone https://github.com/Joel-Dandin/microwatt.git
cd microwatt
make

Link Micropython image

ln -s micropython/firmware.bin main_ram.bin

Run Microwatt!

./core_tb > /dev/null

Run code on FPGA

Create Hex file to run on FPGA

cd uwatt/microwatt
ln -s micropython/firmware.bin main_ram.bin
cd hello_world
make clean
make FILE=joel_test

To flash the hex file to the FPGA use fusesoc

fusesoc run --target=nexys_a7 microwatt --ram_init_file=/home/aip/dwatt/microwatt/micropython/firmware.hex

Video