Overview

Conductor is a project to help/control LETC and consists of two parts:

• A CLI tool that runs on a personal computer
• Software running on the Cora Z7 ARM core receives commands from the CLI and performs the specified operation. This software also performs any initialization required for LETC.

Command ideas

• Reset and pause execution
• Pause execution
• Step instruction (This may be difficult RTL-wise)
• Read from a memory location
• Write a memory location
• Load a binary/kernel from the host/the sd card
• Read from the register file (This may be difficult RTL-wise)
• Read the pc (This may be difficult RTL-wise)
• Read the current instruction (This may be difficult RTL-wise)
• Potentially option to reprogram the PL with a new bitstream on the fly? So we don't have to reload conductor or anything, enabling faster iteration/testing

Conductor UART Protocol

Command Steps

• Conductor CLI sends full command
• Conductor ARM sends ACK and any needed data or sends NACK

Command structure

• Start of transmission byte
• Command byte
• Any command specific data
• End of transmission byte

Response structure

• Start of transmission byte
• Echo command byte
• Ack/Nack byte
• If Nack, the Nack reason byte
• If Ack, any command specific data
• End of transmission byte

Commands

SYNC