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High-Performance LabVIEW FPGA Course

The High-Performance LabVIEW FPGA course teaches concepts to developers who are looking to design, implement, and optimize their LabVIEW FPGA design. During this course you will learn about FPGA resources, communication, simulations, and design strategies for your FPGA application.

Course Details:

Duration

  • Instructor-led Classroom: Three (3) Days

  • Instructor-led Virtual: Four (4) 6-hour sessions

Audience

  • Anyone considering developing applications using NI-RIO devices with high I/O rates (>5 MHz, such as FlexRIO hardware) that require customization through LabVIEW FPGA

Prerequisites

  • LabVIEW Core 1 Course or equivalent experience

  • Familiarity with FPGA development using LabVIEW FPGA or otherwise is helpful, but not required

  • Familiarity with FPGA targets in the LabVIEW project and environment is helpful, but not required

NI Products Used

  • LabVIEW

  • LabVIEW FPGA Module

  • LabVIEW Digital Filter Design Toolkit

  • NI-RIO driver

  • PXI FPGA Module for FlexRIO and FlexRIO adapter modules

After attending this course, you will be able to:

  • Understand how LabVIEW VIs are compiled for FPGA targets

  • Develop applications with the NI-RIO driver

  • Develop high-performance DSP algorithms and digital designs in LabVIEW for FPGAs

  • Integrate existing code (both LabVIEW and HDL) into LabVIEW FPGA applications

High-Performance LabVIEW FPGA Course Outline

Lesson Overview Topics
Why LabVIEW FPGA? Understand the fundamental constructs of an FPGA and why would you use one. 

  • What is an FPGA? 

  • Identifying the Benefits of LabVIEW FPGA 

  • Reviewing FPGA Case Studies 
Understanding the Environment  Identify the main components of the LabVIEW FPGA environment and explain how to compile an FPGA VI. 

  • Identify Software and Hardware for Your Application 

  • Compiling the FPGA VI 

  • Identify Some Important Constructs While Compiling an FPGA VI 
Debugging  Apply Techniques and Tools for Debugging FPGA Designs.
  • Execution Modes and Integrated Debug Tools 

  • Debug Techniques 

  • Constructing a Test Bed 
Understanding the Requirements of an Application Review a set of requirements and deduce different potential solution(s) that achieve the application goals.
  • Identify and Evaluate Application Requirements 

  • Determine solution(s) that achieve the application requirements 
Designing Your Application Breakdown application requirements into hardware and software features and learn how to design your application.  
  • Select a Design Diagram 

  • Identify units of your FPGA application 

  • Design a simple FPGA application 

  • Optimize an applications requirements 

  • Describe FPGA Design flow 

  • Select an FPGA Design Scenario 
Implementation Understand the FPGA design flow and apply this process to a practical application
  • Demonstrating the FPGA design flow via a DSP case study 

  • Utilizing external interfaces 

  • Leveraging external interfaces 

  • Communicating between different devices 

  • Transferring data from one clock domain to another 

  • Interacting with different IP blocks using the Four Wire Protocol 
Optimizing Your Application  Fix common compile problems and get more out of your FPGA 
  • Improving Timing with Pipelining 

  • Increase Compile Success using Multiple Clock Domains 

  • Improving Code Generation by Reducing the Enable Chain 

  • Reducing Resource Usage 
Design Considerations for a Host Application  Understand how NI FPGA affects an application 

  • Interfacing with the FPGA 

  • Modularizing the host interface 

  • Optimizing DMA communication 

  • Monitoring DMA FIFOs
Examples of High-Performance Applications Understand what High-Performance Applications exist and how to use them.
  • NI Streaming 5840 Host

  • Aurora 64b/66b Streaming Example for the PXIe-7915 

  • Combine NI Streaming 5840 with Aurora 64b/66b for 7915

  • High-Throughput Streaming (FlexRIO) 

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