This tutorial details the steps required for using Vitis to deploy an ARM Cortex-A9 firmware & software design on the ZedBoard hardware.

The aims of this tutorial are as follows :-

1. Setup hardware
2. Setup environment
3. Launch Vitis
4. Launch MiniCom terminal emulator
5. Deploy firmware & software on Zedboard

Connect up the hardware as follows :-

1. Xubuntu PC USB ⇄ Zedboard USB JTAG/Debug
2. Xubuntu PC USB ⇄ Zedboard USB UART

Set the boot mode jumpers on the Zedboard for JTAG.

Setup Xilinx design environment for the 2021.2 toolset.

Launch Vitis IDE and specify the Workspace to use.

Open up a new terminal and launch the MiniCom terminal emulator.

To program the PL & PS part of the Zynq-7000 FPGA right click on leds_switches under leds_switches_system inside the Explorer tab and select Run As » Launch on Hardware (Single Application Debug) from the menu. The blue done LED will illuminate once the Programmable Logic (PL) has been programmed, the two middle LED's will then illuminate and after this the software will run on the Processor System (PS). All being well the Minicom terminal emulator will display the following output from the application. Pressing the 'r' key reads the register linked to the eight slide switches. With switches 0, 1, 4 & 5 in the 'on' position and 2, 3, 6 & 7 in the 'off' position the register read will return the following. Pressing the 'w' key lights the eight LED's in sequence from right to left and then left to right, displaying the values written to the register. Pressing the 'q' key exits the application by exiting the main function.