- Microchip Polarfire SoC FPGA Icicle Kit development board
- Original 12V 5A DC 5.5*2.1mm power adapter (comes with US standard plug, requires an adapter/replacement with national standard plug for use in Chinese mainland)
- Two micro-USB to USB-A cables (included), used for connecting USB-UART, updating FPGA/HSS, and flashing images to the onboard eMMC
- (Optional) An SD card (not recommended to use microSD with adapter, it may not be recognized; ensure the card is not write-protected)
- Ubuntu 24.04
- Download link: https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/24.04/release/
- Reference Installation Document: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RISC-V/PolarFire%20SoC%20FPGA%20Icicle%20Kit
- Icicle Kit Reference Design Release v2024.02
- FlashPro Express v2024.1 (packaged in Programming and Debug Tools)
- Download link (requires login): https://www.microchip.com/en-us/products/fpgas-and-plds/fpga-and-soc-design-tools/programming-and-debug/lab
Visit the mentioned download link and download according to your operating system.
Note: There is a login barrier, you need to register and log in to download.
Fill in the email and other information to register for free.
This tool supports:
- Windows 10/11
- RHEL/CentOS 7.x, RHEL/CentOS 8.0-8.2
- OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 (SLES 12.3)
- Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, 20.04.3 LTS, and 22.04.1 LTS
I used Windows 11 Home x64, although the installer will prompt an unsupported system, it works fine.
Once downloaded, run and follow the default installation process. In Linux, first use chmod +x to grant executable permissions, then execute. Root permissions may be required.
Ubuntu from kernel 5.19 depends on Icicle Kit Reference Design v2022.10 or newer versions.
Download the latest version from GitHub:
https://github.com/polarfire-soc/icicle-kit-reference-design/releases
Download the MPFS_ICICLE_BASE_DESIGN_yyyy_mm.zip file and extract for later use.
Use the microUSB cable to connect the development board to the computer.
The development board has two microUSB interfaces, connect to the J33 interface near the power switch to flash the FPGA, as shown in the figure below.
Open FlashPro Express, click the top left menu Project -> New Job Project
Select the previously extracted MPFS_ICICLE_BASE_DESIGN, plug in the 12V power, power on the board, then click OK:
At this point, the FPGA should be recognized. Ensure the dropdown menu on the left is set to PROGRAM, click RUN to start flashing the FPGA.
A green prompt indicates success:
Polarfire SoC FPGA Icicle Kit supports booting from onboard eMMC or SD card.
By default, it prioritizes the SD card. If the SD card is missing or fails to boot, it will boot from the onboard eMMC.
Connect the microUSB cable to the USB OTG interface near the SD card slot, marked J19.
Connect the USB UART near the Ethernet interface, marked J11.
Your computer will recognize it as a CP2108 USB to UART. If this is the only USB to UART on your computer, four serial ports will be recognized.
On Windows, four COM ports will appear, on Linux, /dev/ttyUSB{0,1,2,3} will appear, as shown below:
Interface 0 is for HSS output, Interface 1 is for U-Boot and Linux console output.
In Linux, they correspond to the first and second serial ports respectively.
| Serial Port Function | Windows | Linux |
|---|---|---|
| HSS Console | Interface 0 | /dev/ttyUSB0 |
| U-Boot & Linux Console | Interface 1 | /dev/ttyUSB1 |
To flash an image to eMMC, connect to the HSS console, during startup (when prompted Press a key to enter CLI, ESC to skip) press any key to interrupt.
Enter:
mmc
usbdmsc
It will prompt Waiting for USB Host to connect.
At this point, your computer should recognize a USB mass storage device. Use Win32DiskImager/Rufus/USBImager/dd and other tools to write the image directly.
After writing the image, press Ctrl+C in the HSS console to exit USB storage mode. The image flashing is complete.
Directly use Rufus/Win32DiskImager/dd and other tools to write the image to the SD card.
xzcat ubuntu-24.04-preinstalled-server-riscv64+icicle.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M iflag=fullblock status=progress Power on the development board. The second serial port will display the boot information.
On the first boot, Ubuntu will invoke
cloud-init. Limited by the performance of the development board, startup may take several minutes, which is expected.
Username: ubuntu
Password: ubuntu
You will be prompted to change the password upon first login, follow the instructions.
The system should boot normally and allow login through the serial console.
The system booted successfully and login through the serial console was also successful.
Screen recording (from eMMC flashing to login):
Successful: The actual result matches the expected result.
Failed: The actual result does not match the expected result.
Test successful.
- PolarFire SoC Software Tool Flow
- MPFS Icicle Kit User Guide
- Updating MPFS Kit
- Under CC BY 4.0 license, by Microchip Technology Inc. and its subsidiaries