LabVIEW can support FPGA ?

[CJC IN six person]

I konw LabVIEW  can  support FPGA in RIO,but can we development  any Xilinx FPGA by LabVIEW  ?

[Neil Pate]

Nope, only NI RIO hardware.

[CJC IN six person]

On 2016/10/18 at 1:08 AM, Neil Pate said:

Nope, only NI RIO hardware.

WE CAN

[Neil Pate]

Huh?

You ask a question and then answer it yourself. Have I missed something here? Can you share with us how you can target any Xilinx FPGA?

[jacobson]

They posted a product page for a Pocket-RIO in their own thread. It looks like the same company that developed the Hand-RIO.

lavag.org/topic/19867-labview-can-support-any-xilinx-fpga/#comment-120359

 

[CJC IN six person]

17 hours ago, Neil Pate said:

Huh?

You ask a question and then answer it yourself. Have I missed something here? Can you share with us how you can target any Xilinx FPGA?

my friend, you can see it

 

[CJC IN six person]

Pocket-RIO.pdf

[CJC IN six person]

16 hours ago, jacobson said:

They posted a product page for a Pocket-RIO in their own thread. It looks like the same company that developed the Hand-RIO.

lavag.org/topic/19867-labview-can-support-any-xilinx-fpga/#comment-120359

 

[Neil Pate]

I think perhaps we have a different definition of the word *any*, but I do not wish to take your thunder away. This is very impressive what you have managed to create, clearly a lot of work has gone into it. I seem to recall seeing something like this a few years ago?

This is almost certainly a non-NI sanctioned product, are you aware of any legal ramifications of piggybacking into the toolchain? What I mean is, if we have a valid FPGA Toolkit license is this actually legal?

My Chinese is not so good, so the website is not much help. Do you have pricing information?

Also, the Atom-RIO looks very interesting, I presume it is like a cRIO type clone?

Edited October 24, 2016 by Neil Pate

[CJC IN six person]

7 minutes ago, Neil Pate said:

I think perhaps we have a different definition of the word *any*, but I do not wish to take your thunder away. This is very impressive what you have managed to create, clearly a lot of work has gone into it. I seem to recall seeing something like this a few years ago?

This is almost certainly a non-NI sanctioned product, are you aware of any legal ramifications of piggybacking into the toolchain? What I mean is, if we have a valid FPGA Toolkit license is this actually legal?

My Chinese is not so good, so the website is not much help. Do you have pricing information?

 

 

We can give you a pocket-RIO free，you can experience it

[CJC IN six person]

Pocket-RIO_Broadcast.pdf

Pocket-RIO_Broadcast.pdf

[hooovahh]

Very interesting.  Certainly parts of the work flow are different from the NI implementation, like being able to just run the FPGA from the front panel, instead of having to compile it, then create a host to control it.  Also the change to using your own custom (XNodes I assume) for the interfacing.  Also is it me or does the transfer of the bit file seem slow?  I mean you show a very basic program but it seems to take a while to download.

Beyond that I'm not aware of any precedence being set by NI on these clone hardware.  Plenty of DAQ devices have been made by 3rd party vendors, most with a simple interface via a DLL wrapper, or VISA calls to the hardware.  LabJack is one that comes to mind.  Then there is the more advanced clones like the mentioned Hand-RIO.  I've not heard of a time when NI has come down and not allowed a company to make a product, but then again some of these advanced ones that clearly use the NI tool chain in ways that NI didn't intend, are out of countries that NI is not headquartered in.  I'm not a lawyer, but I would not make a business out of these types of products, due to concerns that NI would sue the pants off of me.

[Neil Pate]

This is a little different to, say, LabJack; this fools the Xilinx compiler into thinking that the "standard" work-flow is being used. There could be some license agreement behind the scenes between NI and Xilinx that we do not know about.

[hooovahh]

12 minutes ago, Neil Pate said:

There could be some license agreement behind the scenes between NI and Xilinx that we do not know about.

I'm sure there is.  And looking at the Hand-RIO videos I'd say it too does some similar tricks with the Xilinx compiler.

[jacobson]

12 hours ago, hooovahh said:

Very interesting.  Certainly parts of the work flow are different from the NI implementation, like being able to just run the FPGA from the front panel, instead of having to compile it, then create a host to control it.

You can do this with NI FPGA hardware as well, once you compile the VI just click run.

[CJC IN six person]

 

Everyone can get a Pocket-RIO free ！But you must pay for postage！！！

[CJC IN six person]

14 hours ago, hooovahh said:

I'm sure there is.  And looking at the Hand-RIO videos I'd say it too does some similar tricks with the Xilinx compiler.

 

 

21 hours ago, hooovahh said:

Very interesting.  Certainly parts of the work flow are different from the NI implementation, like being able to just run the FPGA from the front panel, instead of having to compile it, then create a host to control it.  Also the change to using your own custom (XNodes I assume) for the interfacing.  Also is it me or does the transfer of the bit file seem slow?  I mean you show a very basic program but it seems to take a while to download.

Beyond that I'm not aware of any precedence being set by NI on these clone hardware.  Plenty of DAQ devices have been made by 3rd party vendors, most with a simple interface via a DLL wrapper, or VISA calls to the hardware.  LabJack is one that comes to mind.  Then there is the more advanced clones like the mentioned Hand-RIO.  I've not heard of a time when NI has come down and not allowed a company to make a product, but then again some of these advanced ones that clearly use the NI tool chain in ways that NI didn't intend, are out of countries that NI is not headquartered in.  I'm not a lawyer, but I would not make a business out of these types of products, due to concerns that NI would sue the pants off of me.

!!

[hooovahh]

11 hours ago, jacobson said:

You can do this with NI FPGA hardware as well, once you compile the VI just click run.

That's what I was trying to say.  I like that I can do that with an NI VI.  Just hit run and start interacting with the front panel for debugging.  But this version looks like you have to perform a separate compile operation, which makes the bit file, and then you have to write host code to talk to it.

[shoneill]

36 minutes ago, hooovahh said:

That's what I was trying to say.  I like that I can do that with an NI VI.  Just hit run and start interacting with the front panel for debugging.  But this version looks like you have to perform a separate compile operation, which makes the bit file, and then you have to write host code to talk to it.

I also understood the opposite of what you apparently meant (and also thought "hey, you CAN do that with NI").

[hooovahh]

Quote

Certainly parts of the work flow are different from the NI implementation, like being able to just run the FPGA from the front panel, instead of having to compile it, then create a host to control it.

Is what I said:

Quote

Certainly parts of the work flow are different from the NI implementation, like how with NI you are able to just run the FPGA from the front panel, instead of having to compile it, then create a host to control it.

Is what I meant.  I can see how I wasn't being clear.

[CJC IN six person]

On 2016/10/25 at 9:27 AM, jacobson said:

You can do this with NI FPGA hardware as well, once you compile the VI just click run.

Yes！Our Pocket-RIO is same to the NI FPGA hardware！

[CJC IN six person]

 

 

Pocket-RIO Broadcast

Pocket-RIO_Broadcast.pdf

[CJC IN six person]

 

Our product-Demo

Separate marbles by Atom-RIO !   Process includes vision , motion, FPGA !

http://v.qq.com/x/page/w0338j82tk0.html

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

On 24-10-2016 at 10:24 PM, hooovahh said:

I'm sure there is.  And looking at the Hand-RIO videos I'd say it too does some similar tricks with the Xilinx compiler.

Definitely! NI licensed the Xilinx toolchain from Xilinx to be distributed as part of the FPGA toolkit and there will be certainly some limitations in the fine print that Xilinx requires NI to follow as part of that license deal. They do not want ANY customer to be able to rip out the toolchain from a LabVIEW FPGA installation to program ANY Xilinx FPGA hardware with and not having to buy the toolchain from Xilinx instead, which starts at $2995 for a node locked Vivado Design HL license, which I would assume to be similar to what NI bundles, except that NI also bundles the older version for use with older cRIO systems. So while NI certainly won't like such hardware offerings, as it hurts their cRIO sales to some extend, they may contractually be obligated to proceed on such attempts to circumvent the Xilinx/NI license deal, if they want to or not. 

Edited October 27, 2016 by rolfk

[MarkCG]

48 minutes ago, rolfk said:

Definitely! NI licensed the Xilinx toolchain from Xilinx to be distributed as part of the FPGA toolkit and there will be certainly some limitations in the fine print that Xilinx requires NI to follow as part of that license deal. They do not want ANY customer to be able to rip out the toolchain from a LabVIEW FPGA installation to program ANY Xilinx FPGA hardware with and not having to buy the toolchain from Xilinx instead, which starts at $2995 for a node locked Vivado Design HL license, which I would assume to be similar to what NI bundles, except that NI also bundles the older version for use with older cRIO systems. So while NI certainly won't like such hardware offerings, as it hurts their cRIO sales to some extend, they may contractually be obligated to proceed on such attempts to circumvent the Xilinx/NI license deal, if they want to or not. 

I like many others have wanted to be able to target any Xilinx FPGA with LabVIEW. There are at least two projects that I could have done if this was possible. What these guys have done is impressive. I hope product forces NI and Xilinx to finally officially allow targeting any and all Xilinx FPGAs with NI tools. They could try taking legal action but I think they have more to lose than to gain by that route.