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Chester-Gillon/Notes_about_ALINX_VD100_Dev_Board_&_Kit_with_AMD_Versal_AI_Edge_XCVE2302.md

Last active December 19, 2025 23:23
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Notes about ALINX VD100 Dev Board & Kit with AMD Versal AI Edge XCVE2302
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Notes_about_ALINX_VD100_Dev_Board_&_Kit_with_AMD_Versal_AI_Edge_XCVE2302.md

0. Introduction

Contains notes about the ALINX VD100 Dev Board & Kit with AMD Versal AI Edge XCVE2302

1. Different hardware revisions

Noticed the product page linked above contains V2.0 at the start which suggests different hardware revisions may have been shipped. Looking at the history of the product page:

Manually comparing the two pages above can't see any different information.

The actual board has a V2.0 sticker on the base board.

Found two revisions of the user manual:

The REV2.0 Version Record says:

Modify eMMC FLASH part number,MTFC8GAKAJCN- 4M has been discontinued

PCIe QDMA Gen4

The Part 2.6: eMMC Flash user manual section:

  • V1.0 : The V100 module is equipped with a large-capacity 8GB eMMC FLASH chip, model MTFC8GAKAJCN-4M
  • V2.0 : The V100 module is equipped with a large-capacity 32GB eMMC FLASH chip, model MTFC32GBCAQTC-IT

2. As delivered state

SW1 has the boot mode set to SD2.0 0101.

Before powering on the board fitted the SD card into a AlmaLinux 8 PC with the SD card adapter set to read-only.

lsblk reported:

NAME                        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdc                           8:32   1  29.1G  1 disk 
├─sdc1                        8:33   1   502M  1 part /run/media/mr_halfword/FAT
└─sdc2                        8:34   1   977M  1 part

The FAT partition in sdc1 contains:

[mr_halfword@skylake-alma ~]$ ls -l /run/media/mr_halfword/FAT/
total 14784
-rw-r--r--. 1 mr_halfword mr_halfword 5335248 Feb  1  2024 BOOT.BIN
-rw-r--r--. 1 mr_halfword mr_halfword    3472 Feb  1  2024 boot.scr
-rw-r--r--. 1 mr_halfword mr_halfword 9794460 Feb  1  2024 image.ub

boot.scr is a u-boot boot script:

[mr_halfword@skylake-alma ~]$ file /run/media/mr_halfword/FAT/boot.scr 
/run/media/mr_halfword/FAT/boot.scr: u-boot legacy uImage, Boot script, Linux/ARM, Script File (Not compressed), 3408 bytes, Tue Apr  5 23:00:00 2011, Load Address: 0x00000000, Entry Point: 0x00000000, Header CRC: 0xC0D8A31B, Data CRC: 0x4C13CE74

file doesn't know the type of BOOT.BIN nor image.ub.

The EXT4 partition in sdc2 hasn't been mounted, with dmesg reporting:

[12229.520661] EXT4-fs (sdc2): INFO: recovery required on readonly filesystem
[12229.520664] EXT4-fs (sdc2): write access unavailable, cannot proceed (try mounting with noload)

Made re-only copies of the partitions to local file:

[mr_halfword@skylake-alma ~]$ sudo dd if=/dev/sdc1 of=VD100_sd_card_backup/fat_boot_partition
[sudo] password for mr_halfword: 
1028096+0 records in
1028096+0 records out
526385152 bytes (526 MB, 502 MiB) copied, 5.54398 s, 94.9 MB/s
[mr_halfword@skylake-alma ~]$ sudo dd if=/dev/sdc2 of=VD100_sd_card_backup/ext4_partition
2000896+0 records in
2000896+0 records out
1024458752 bytes (1.0 GB, 977 MiB) copied, 10.7481 s, 95.3 MB/s
[mr_halfword@skylake-alma ~]$ sudo chown mr_halfword ~/VD100_sd_card_backup/*
[mr_halfword@skylake-alma ~]$ chmod -w ~/VD100_sd_card_backup/*

The FAT partition:

[mr_halfword@skylake-alma ~]$ file ~/VD100_sd_card_backup/fat_boot_partition 
/home/mr_halfword/VD100_sd_card_backup/fat_boot_partition: DOS/MBR boot sector, code offset 0x58+2, OEM-ID "mkfs.fat", sectors/cluster 8, Media descriptor 0xf8, sectors/track 32, heads 64, hidden sectors 2048, sectors 2629632 (volumes > 32 MB), FAT (32 bit), sectors/FAT 2568, reserved 0x1, serial number 0xf1fc8f7b, label: "FAT        "

The EXT4 partition:

[mr_halfword@skylake-alma ~]$ file ~/VD100_sd_card_backup/ext4_partition 
/home/mr_halfword/VD100_sd_card_backup/ext4_partition: Linux rev 1.0 ext4 filesystem data, UUID=6c41ecdd-ece6-4737-af5b-be558ad1103e, volume name "EXT4" (needs journal recovery) (extents) (64bit) (large files) (huge files)

The needs journal recovery for the EXT4 partition is why couldn't mount the SD card partition as read-only - see mount ext4 disk: cannot mount /dev/sdc read-only

2.1. Failure to boot from SD card

When initially tried using with the boot mode set to SD2.0 0101 and the SD card fitted:

  1. On the first power up when connected JTAG the device wasn't reported as programmed.
  2. Power cycles the when connected JTAG the device was reported as programmed and was able to load a pre-compiled pdi example file from the ALINX examples.
  3. On numerous power cycles:
    • The device wasn't reported as programmed when checked with JTAG, and attempts to load a pdi file over JTAG failed with an error. After a power up the boot mode read over JTAG wasn't valid (1101?).
    • If disconnected the JTAG and took the side of the PC, on power up the DONE led wasn't lit.

Changed SW1 to JTAG 0000. On power have then been able to load pdi files over JTAG successfully.

3. Multiplexed I/O (MIO) bank voltages

For the MIO banks:

  • Banks 500 (PMC), 501 (PMC) and 502 (LPD PS) have a VCCO of 1.8V
  • Bank 503 (dedicated) has a VCCO of 3.3V

In the designs created so far, in the CIPS configuration the MIO Voltage Standard for all banks had been left at the default of LVCMOS1.8.

The Power Configuration section of PG352 has:

This setting must reflect the board LVCMOS voltage used per MIO bank. These settings are notused to set up any register or the MIO voltage. They are used by Vivado report_power to estimate power consumption.

I.e. having Bank3 set to 1.8V, instead of 3.3V, in the CIPS IP configuration won't have caused any functional issue.

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