Spartan3E_ReadBigControlVI problem

[bluesky96]

Hi, I'm using LabVIEW to implement on Spartan 3E FPGA. Tests of the design was okay but everytime the tests exceeds a certain amount of time the program stop executing and shows a the message "Error 1111: Release Semaphore called on a semaphore that was not currently acquired. " and then a VI called Spartan3E_ReadBigControlVI opens its frontal panel with prompt to enter a password???.Notice that i didn't use any semaphore functions. I'm using host target communication (Host VI and FPGA VI).

PS. if the test does not take time ( small amount of data) the FPGA works fine but if i increase the amount of data the FPGA will start working but after a while the message and the VI mentioned above appears.

[Mellroth]

...if the test does not take time ( small amount of data) the FPGA works fine but if i increase the amount of data the FPGA will start working but after a while the message and the VI mentioned above appears...

Hi bluesky96,

welcome to LAVA.

It would be much easier for us to help if you could attach the code.

Right now I can only guess that some of the functions that you use, actually references the semaphore VIs.

Are you using DMA to transfer data back and forth to the FPGA? If so, are you sure that all data is read by the other side before continuing?

/J

[asbo]

I'm going to guess you're using some kind of LabVIEW toolkit that came with the Spartan 3E?

[jgcode]

I'm going to guess you're using some kind of LabVIEW toolkit that came with the Spartan 3E?

NI has a driver released for academic use.

If anyone is interested below are some handy links:

Here is a starter kit with tutorials.

Here is more info on the project and driver download details.

[bluesky96]

Thanks for responding to my post,

Mellroth - I'm using read /write function to communicate with the FPGA not DMA. Anyhow here is snap shot of my code.

I have already checked sync between FPGA and Host and it's OK. Notice that performing test using 1000 bit with 10 different runs is OK

but i need to increase the number of runs to 10000 run to obtain smooth probability of error (BER) curve and that's when the problem appears.

[bmouring]

Hi bluesky96,

Mellroth is indeed correct: the interface code behind the scenes is using LV semaphores to try to make things safe.

It was determined that this code was problematic (as you're seeing now) and was redesigned in the upcoming release of the package to be much more robust.

As such, unfortunately there is precious little you can do to solve this particular problem other than trying to reconfigure your design a bit to try to avoid the issue you're running into or wait for the impending release

[bmouring]

bluesky96

The latest release of the Spartan 3E Starter board support has been released for LabVIEW 2010. It can be downloaded here