Failure when using FLASH to configure FPGA on the XEM6010-LX150

Spartan-6 USB 2.0 Modules
1

I am working with the XEM6060-LX150 board.

I load the counters.bit provided by OK into FLASH using flashloader.exe and then I am able to configure the FPGA from FLASH and it works fine. (Leds blink in a count sequence.)

I build a counters.bit file using the Xilinx ISE flow (using XST) for Counters.v and it works when I configure the FPGA from USB. (Leds blink in a count sequence.)

I use flashloader.exe with my counters.bit file and it seems to program the FLASH with no errors.

When I try to configure the FPGA from FLASH it does not work. (Leds do not blink and FrontPanel can’t “see” the FPGA.)

I notice that the OK counters.bit is 1,376,194 bytes long. My counters.bit is 4,220,320 bytes long.

I can’t seem to find any documentation on specifics of the FLASH configuration method other than the README in the Flashloader sample directory and a mention of it in the XEM6010 User Manual.

Any ideas on what I am doing wrong?

Thanks,

2

Uhhhh…I think I just figured it out.

The FLASH is 32Mbits, which is 4,194,304 bytes.

My bit file is 4,220,326 bytes.

Should I be using bit stream compression?

Thanks,

3

Yes, you should be able to fit your project with bitstream compression turned on.

4

yup that worked…

thanks,