Creating an MCS File and Programming the
Alveo Card
For custom RTL ow, this secon outlines the procedures to do the following:
• Create an MCS le (PROM image)
• Flash program through the maintenance connector
Create an MCS File (PROM Image)
To ensure that the PROM image is successfully loaded onto the Alveo accelerator card at power
on, the starng address must be set to 0x01002000 and the interface set to spix4 when
creang the MCS le. Details on adding this to the MCS le can be found in the UltraScale
Architecture Conguraon User Guide (UG570).
The Alveo accelerator card's Quad SPI conguraon ash memory contains a protected region,
with the factory base image at the 0x00000000 address space. This base image points to the
customer programmable region at a 0x01002000 address space oset.
In addion, the following code must be placed in the project XDC le to correctly congure the
MCS le.
# Bitstream Configuration
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
set_property CONFIG_VOLTAGE 1.8 [current_design]
set_property BITSTREAM.CONFIG.CONFIGFALLBACK Enable [current_design]
set_property BITSTREAM.GENERAL.COMPRESS TRUE [current_design]
set_property CONFIG_MODE SPIx4 [current_design]
set_property BITSTREAM.CONFIG.SPI_BUSWIDTH 4 [current_design]
set_property BITSTREAM.CONFIG.CONFIGRATE 85.0 [current_design]
set_property BITSTREAM.CONFIG.EXTMASTERCCLK_EN disable [current_design]
set_property BITSTREAM.CONFIG.SPI_FALL_EDGE YES [current_design]
set_property BITSTREAM.CONFIG.UNUSEDPIN Pullup [current_design]
set_property BITSTREAM.CONFIG.SPI_32BIT_ADDR Yes [current_design]
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once the XDC le has been updated, generate the MCS le using the following command (note
the quotaons are required):
write_cfgmem -force -format mcs -interface spix4 -size 1024 -loadbit "up 0x01002000
<input_le.bit>" -le "<output_le.mcs>"
Where:
• <input_le.bit> is the lename of the input .bit le
• <output_le.mcs> is the MCS output lename
Chapter 2: Vivado Design Flow
UG1371 (v1.2) December 18, 2019 www.xilinx.com
Alveo U50 Accelerator Card User Guide 12