System Design Types - 2023.2 English

Versal Adaptive SoC System and Solution Planning Methodology Guide (UG1504)

Document ID
UG1504
Release Date
2023-11-15
Version
2023.2 English

The AMD Versal™ adaptive SoC is a heterogeneous compute platform with multiple compute engines. A wide range of applications can be mapped on a Versal adaptive SoC, including signal processing for wireless systems, machine learning inference, and video processing algorithms. In addition to multiple compute engines, Versal adaptive SoC offers very high system bandwidth using high-speed serial I/Os, network on chip (NoC), DDR4/LPDDR4 memory controllers, HBM controllers, and multi-rate Ethernet Media Access Controllers (MRMACs). Versal devices are categorized into the Versal Prime, Premium, HBM, AI Core, and AI Edge series. The following figure shows the different system design types and design flows supported for each Versal device series.

Note: The design flows for Versal Prime, Premium, and HBM series are similar to the flows used with AMD FPGAs. The design flow for Versal AI Core, AI Edge series, and Versal Premium VP2502 and VP2802 devices requires that you design for a heterogeneous compute platform, which has special hardware configuration and software support requirements.
Figure 1. System Design Types

The following table shows the system design types and design flows supported for each Versal device series. As shown in the table, a majority of the design flows are based on building a platform.

Table 1. System Design Types
Design Type Device Series Design Flow Platform Source GitHub Examples
Hardware-only system Versal Prime Series

Versal Premium Series

Versal HBM Series

Traditional N/A Versal Device Architecture Tutorials
Embedded system Versal Prime Series

Versal Premium Series

Versal HBM Series

Traditional N/A Versal Adaptive SoC Embedded Design Tutorial
Platform-based Custom Versal Prime Series VMK180 Targeted Reference Designs
Embedded AI Engine system Versal AI Core Series

Versal AI Edge Series

Versal Premium VP2502 and VP2802 devices

Platform-based Custom AI Engine Development Design Tutorials

VCK190 Base TRD

AI Engine-ML Tutorials

Tip: Check GitHub for additional examples, which are updated periodically.

Following is a summary of each system design type:

Hardware-only system
Programmable logic designs. Create this system using the traditional design flow.
Embedded system
Embedded processing system with software running on the Arm® Cortex®-A72 or Cortex-R5F processors and hardware content in the PL. Create this system using either the traditional or platform-based design flow.
Embedded AI Engine system
Embedded processing system with software running on the Arm Cortex-A72 or Cortex-R5F processors, hardware content in the PL, and algorithmic content in the AI Engine. Create this system using the platform-based design flow.

Following are the design flows for Versal adaptive SoC:

Traditional design flow
In the traditional design flow, the entire PL portion of the system is defined in a single AMD Vivado™ project. This project must include the foundational Versal hardware IP blocks (e.g., Control, Interface, and Processing System (CIPS), NoC, I/O controllers) and any other custom RTL and IP blocks needed for the project. Design sources are added to the Vivado tools and compiled through the Vivado implementation flow. If the system consists of PL components only, the Vivado tools are used to generate a programmable device image (PDI) to program the Versal device. If the system also includes embedded software content, the software application is developed in the AMD Vitis™ environment on top of the fixed hardware design exported from the Vivado tools. This flow is similar to the one traditionally used for AMD Zynq™ UltraScale+™ MPSoCs.
Platform-based design flow
In the platform-based design flow, the hardware system is divided into distinct elements: a reusable base platform developed in Vivado and extensions to the base hardware developed in Vitis through a well-defined set of connectivity interfaces within an extensible region of the base platform. Most of the hardware design is developed in Vivado, but portions of the design best specified in C++ as opposed to a hardware description language (HDL) are most naturally developed and integrated in Vitis. Examples of the latter include AI Engine graphs and kernels, as well as kernel functions targeting PL compiled through high-level synthesis (HLS).

You choose how to partition your design between base platform and extensible region based on where you will be most productive. Over the course of a design cycle the base hardware and extensible regions can both evolve, and a well-designed base platform can form the basis for multiple applications in which Vitis tools extend the extensible region. Design content can be exported from Vivado to Vitis and vice versa with coupling as loose or as tight as makes sense for the respective development teams, which promotes concurrent development and integration of the different elements comprising a heterogeneous system.