Xilinx ISE Microblaze tutorials or examples available?

[hal9001]

Are there tutorials available for Microblaze in Xilinx ISE? I want to use the UART rx and tx, GPI, GPO but I dont find example projects.

Cheers!

[matrixofdynamism]

The Xilinx ISE is old and outdated. It might not even work reliably on modern OS. The Xilinx now offer Vivado that has replaced ISE.

If anyone needs to use ISE today, that is only possible if they need to compile design for very old devices that are no longer supported in Vivado. You will have to download specific version of Xilinx ISE that comes with Virtual Machine. It will then run ISE inside a virtual machine container on your OS. I tried that some months ago. You will have to find which version of ISE that is since I do not remember it anymore.

Why not use Vivado? Also, I believe you need to use Vitis for the software portion to program the Microblaze. Do some search on youtube. Get a simple basic Xilinx FPGA board. You should get example projects with it as well.

[SiliconWizard]

The 6 series and older devices are only supported in ISE. And the 6 series, while now already "old", is just the previous Xilinx series, and still widely used.
I think Xilinx supports ISE in Windows 10+ via a virtual machine IIRC? (Which sucks, but works.) Works fine in Windows 7. It also works fine on Linux.

As to Microblaze, you can start here: https://ibelimb.com/2014/03/30/generating-a-microblaze-soft-processor-with-ise-webpack-14-dot-7/

[Valueduser]

I run ISE in a windows 7 VM, Xilinx also has a "windows 10 version" that is really just a linux VM running ISE14.7.  There's some decent tutorials out there on youtube and about instantiating the core and getting an SDK project up and running.  If at all possible I'd suggest using vivado but if you are using a 6 series chip you're stuck using ISE. 

[hal9001]

Im writing for the Spartan 6 which is regretfully not supported by Vivado. ISE is running in a VM. Its hard to find tutorials using ISE Microblaze for some reason. Is it uncommon to have soft cores in 6 series FPGAs?

As to Microblaze, you can start here: https://ibelimb.com/2014/03/30/generating-a-microblaze-soft-processor-with-ise-webpack-14-dot-7/

Cheers!

[matrixofdynamism]

What is this project for?

Industry/Job? University/Academy? Hobby?

[hal9001]

What is this project for?

Industry/Job? University/Academy? Hobby?

Industry. We have stock of Spartan 6 fpgas that will be used for this project.

[Mark]

I have some old memc reference/example designs for ISE 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 7.1

they are for this old Memc 3SLC board:
http://vcl.ece.ucdavis.edu/misc/fpga_files/memec_3slc_usersguide_v2_0.pdf

I could zip them if you think they would be any good. 

[matrixofdynamism]

See, when you use FPGAs that are already close to their end of life, your project in industry will become difficult to maintain in the long run due to component obsolescence. It is better to use devices that are much early in their life cycle. As we move to newer devices, we get more logic resource for the same price. The PCB design will probably become more difficult but that is someone else's problem.

Have you considered this?