Quad SPI Controller

Versal Adaptive SoC Technical Reference Manual (AM011)

Document ID
AM011
Release Date
2023-10-05
Revision
1.6 English

The quad SPI (QSPI) controller can access one or two flash devices using several different methods. The controller is located with the other flash memory controllers in the PMC. The I/O interface is routed to the PMC MIO pin bank 0 and can drive one or two devices. QSPI is commonly used as a boot device, see QSPI Flash Boot Mode. The controller provides multiple ways to read and write flash memory:

  • SPI accesses
  • Programmed I/O (PIO) protocol
  • DMA indirect read using the AXI interface

SPI accesses enables software to control the bus protocol and read/write memory data via the APB programming interface.

Linear addressing is not supported. Processor software also cannot execute code directly from the controller; execute-in-place is not supported.

For DMA, data is autonomously read from the flash memory and written to system memory via the TXFIFO. The DMA master is on the PMC main AXI switch. The DMA includes a TXFIFO.

Software sends commands to the controller using the flash command register. The commands are buffered in the command FIFO. Commands include configuration, SPI commands (opcode, address, mode, dummy), and single byte reads and writes.

The controller also includes a programmable polling features to read the flash device status and report when a certain value is received.

The interface works with up to two flash devices. The I/O interface is routed to the PMC MIO multiplexer, bank 0. The I/O signals are not available on the LPD MIO pins or the PL EMIO port signal interface.

The data signals are divided between upper and lower signals; four data bits each with a clock and a chip select. The two-device implementation can be stacked with a 4-bit I/O interface, or connected in parallel with an 8-bit interface for higher performance.

Software accesses the QSPI register module via a 32-bit APB programming interface.