Introduction to Vitis Part 1

Introduction

This lab guides you through the steps involved in creating a Vitis project using Graphical User Interface (GUI). After creating the project, you will run software emulation to verify the functionality of the design.

References

For more details on the Vitis IDE see the Vitis documentation for Creating a Vitis IDE Project.

Description of example application

This lab uses an example application available in Vitis. It consists of a host application and kernel (written in C++/OpenCL). The kernel is a simple vector addition. The elements of 2 vectors (A & B) are added together, and the result returned in a third array (C). The host application initializes the two input arrays, send data to the kernel, and reads back the result.

You will compile and test a software only version of the application. The vector add kernel will then be implemented as a hardware kernel. You will first build and run a Software Emulation version of the design, followed by a Hardware Emulation version which will run a simulation of the hardware model of the kernel along with the host application. You will then test the design with the hardware kernel running in the FPGA in the next part of the lab.

Objectives

After completing this lab (part 1 and part 2), you will learn how to:

Create a project using the Vitis GUI
Run Software Emulation to verify the functionality of a design
Run Hardware Emulation to verify the functionality of the generated hardware design
Build the system and test it in hardware
Perform profile and application timeline analysis in hardware emulation

Steps

Create a Vitis Project

If you have not run lab setup, run it now
In a terminal, start the Vitis GUI by running
```
vitis
```
Set the Vitis workspace to a new empty folder, such as /home/<user>/workspace and click Launch
The Vitis IDE Welcome page will be displayed
Create a new application project

Click Create Application Project from Welcome page, or File > New > Application Project to create a new application
Click Next > in the first window
Select xilinx_aws-vu9p-f1_shell-v04261818_201920_2 platform and click Next >

If you do not see this platform, check you followed the lab set up instructions to set the PLATFORM_REPO_PATHS variable. You can select the platform by clicking the + button and browsing to ~/aws-fpga/Vitis/aws_platform/ and selecting xilinx_aws-vu9p-f1_shell-v04261818_201920_2
Name the project vadd and click Next >
Select Empty Application in the Templates window and click Finish

The project is generated. Observe the top-level folder is called vadd_system, under which three sub-folders (vadd_kernels, vadd_system_hw_link, vadd) are generated. The vadd_kernels folder will hold all the kernel related files, the vadd_system_hw_link will hold all linked kernel related files, and the vadd folder will hold all the host application related files.

Since the Empty project template was selected, the vadd and vadd_kernels will have empty src folders
In the Explorer view, expand and right-click on vadd_system > vadd > src and select Import Sources…
In the Import Sources window, click Browse and navigate to ~/xup_compute_acceleration/sources/vadd_lab/ and click Open
Select the vadd.cpp, xcl2.cpp, and xcl2.hpp files as they are part of the host code and click Finish

Expand the src folder in the Explorer view to verify that the three files were added.
Similarly, import the hardware kernel code (krnl_vadd.cpp) under the vadd_system > vadd_kernels > src folder
In the Explorer view, double-click on the vadd_kernels.prj under the vadd_system > vadd_kernels folder to open the corresponding Hardware Kernel Project Settings
Click the Add Hardware function button () on the Hardware Functions panel’s ribbon
Select krnl_vadd(int *, int *, int *, unsigned int) - krnl_vadd.cpp in the Add Hardware Functions window and click OK
Verify that krnl_vadd is added as a Hardware Function

Build and Run Software Emulation

Select the vadd_system tab in the project settings view
Check the Active build configuration is set to Emulation-SW on the upper right corner of System Project Settings view
In the Explore view, select vadd_system and build the design by clicking the hammer button () on top buttons bar, or right click vadd_system and select Build Project

This step compiles each of the kernels, links them, and compiles the host application
Run Software Emulation

To launch software emulation, select vadd_system either in the Assistant view or in the Explorer view and then click on the run button

Select the Launch SW Emulator option and click OK

Observe the application has run and the output is displayed in the Console view

Found Platform
Platform Name: Xilinx
INFO: Reading /home/centos/workspace/vadd_system/Emulation-SW/binary_container_1.xclbin
Loading: '/home/centos/workspace/vadd_system/Emulation-SW/binary_container_1.xclbin'
Trying to program device[0]: xilinx_aws-vu9p-f1_shell-v04261818_201920_2
Device[0]: program successful!
Running Vector add with 32768 elements
Launching Hardware Kernel...
Getting Hardware Results...
TEST PASSED

You can leave the project open as you will continue from this step in the second part of this lab

Conclusion

In this lab, you used Vitis to create a vector add project using the provided source code. You then ran the design using the software emulation flow.