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The FPGA must be programmed with the bit stream provided on the Github page. To do so the “Lattice Diamond” software is needed. To run this software, a software license is needed. The license can be obtained online at Lattice Diamond License and is free of charge. The “Lattice Diamond” software is the development environment for Lattice FPGAs. For programming the ADC board, the “Diamond Programmer” that comes with the “Lattice Diamond” installation is sufficient and can be started from the Windows start menu. Once the programmer is started, the following window appears. If there is no project, that is already set up, the create a new project from JTAG scan must be selected.
If the device is connected via the micro-USB cable it can be discovered using the “Detect Cable” button. If the device is found, the following popup is displayed where the FTUSB-0 port must be selected. This sets the correct cable type and port. The project can now be created using the “OK” button.
To permanently program the ADC board, the dip switches on the top right must be set as shown in the image below. In this mode, the FPGA on the ADC board will load the bitstream at startup from the on-board SPI flash memory.
After the switches are set, the programmer must be configured to work with the hardware on the ADC. First, the device and the device family must be configured as in the green box in the image below. After that, the programming mode must be configured by double clicking on the box with the label “Operation”. The box is highlighted with a red box in the image below.
After double clicking the “Operation” box, the following popup appears. Set the Access Mode, operation dropdowns as shown in the image below. Make sure that the operation mode matches exactly as there are multiple options that look quite similar. Select the programming file which is the bitstream that was obtained from the Github page (the file should end with .bit). Finally Set the SPI Flash Options as in the image below. Note that the Data file size depends on the bitstream that should be flashed and therefore can differ from the example below. To set the right value just click on the Load from File. Note that the bitstream must be provided prior to this step. Finally click “OK” to confirm the new configuration.
The programmer is now ready to program the ADC with the bitstream. By pressing the symbol highlighted in the image below with the red box and arrow the programming operation is started.
If the programming operation is successful, the Status will display PASS as shown in the image below.
After restarting (power cycling), the ADC is ready for use.