Liquid Instruments Integrates and Dynamically Reconfigures Multiple Instruments with Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC
“We use HDL Coder to convert a customized instrument design into VHDL. Our server compiles that code and returns a bitstream to deploy, so customers can have a system up and running in a matter of minutes.”
Challenge
Customize and deploy multiple instruments to a single test platform without FPGA programming or VHDL coding expertise
Solution
Use HDL Coder with Moku Cloud Compile to convert MATLAB algorithms and Simulink models into FPGA bitstreams
Results
- Instrument space reduced by up to 4x
- FPGA programming capabilities extended to nonspecialists
- Processing time reduced from hours to minutes
A researcher uses Moku:Pro’s built-in instruments customized with MATLAB.
For research science organizations, precision lab equipment is expensive and always evolving. To help these organizations accelerate development and reduce costs, Liquid Instruments set out to introduce flexible software-defined instrumentation, Moku:Pro, where instrument functionality can be dynamically programmed onto FPGA hardware. But programming FPGAs requires specialized knowledge that researchers don’t typically possess.
To address this challenge, Liquid Instruments developed a workflow for programming Moku:Pro that combines HDL Coder™ and Simulink® with Zynq® UltraScale+™ MPSoC, and Moku Cloud Compile. With these tools, there is no need to download FPGA programming tools or to have FPGA expertise.
“HDL Coder enabled our team to build an end-to-end capability that gives engineers and scientists a way to customize their systems while maintaining tight control over hardware,” says Daniel Shaddock, CEO of Liquid Instruments. “Using Moku:Pro, customers can swap instruments in and out and change configurations on-the-fly, which can streamline testing in research and production environments.”
Challenge
Research science organizations often purchase or rent dedicated lab equipment and multiple measurement devices for their test environments. As a result, their scientists and engineers will spend a lot of time setting up new experiments, collecting data, and analyzing results. To help them boost productivity and reduce costs, Liquid Instruments wanted to create a platform for easily deploying multiple precision instruments as well as custom signal-processing functionality onto FPGAs.
Solution
The Liquid Instruments team designed Moku:Pro so that research scientists and engineers can customize the device’s built-in measurement systems using MATLAB® or Simulink. To enable this customization, the team partitioned the onboard Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC into five distinct regions. Four regions are dedicated to instruments and one to system control. Each region can be independently and dynamically reconfigured to implement its own function and bitstream file.
Liquid Instruments customers can choose from a wide variety of lab instruments to deploy on Moku:Pro, including oscilloscopes, waveform generators, frequency response analyzers, PID controllers, data loggers, spectrum analyzers, lock-in amplifiers, phase meters, and digital filter boxes. Customers who need more advanced or custom processing then use MATLAB or Simulink to develop and model new IP blocks.
Customers use Fixed-Point Designer™ to convert the algorithms to fixed-point implementation and use HDL Coder to convert the design into low-level VHDL code, then paste the code into a browser and use Moku Cloud Compile to program the FPGA modules.
With subscription-based Moku Cloud Compile, customers design and deploy custom signal processing algorithms through Moku:Pro’s onboard FPGA. The cloud-based tool accepts VHDL code as its input and is fully compatible with the device’s Multi-instrument Mode, enabling custom-built test suites optimized for specific applications and requirements.
Results
- Instrument space reduced by up to 4x. “Users can dynamically reprogram Moku:Pro with up to four instrument modules from more than ten precision instruments,” says Shaddock.
- FPGA programming capabilities extended to nonspecialists. “HDL Coder transforms MATLAB and Simulink files into VHDL and eliminates the need for users to compile within an integrated design environment (IDE) such as Xilinx® Vivado,” says Shaddock.
- Processing time reduced from hours to minutes. “In the new workflow, signal processing is programmed in MATLAB and modeled in Simulink,” says Shaddock. “Using the output from HDL Coder, Moku Cloud Compile builds a bitstream and deploys it to the FPGA from a browser, automating resource configuration.”
