litescope 2023.12

Small footprint and configurable embedded FPGA logic analyzer core

                                 __   _ __      ____
                                / /  (_) /____ / __/______  ___  ___
                               / /__/ / __/ -_)\ \/ __/ _ \/ _ \/ -_)
                              /____/_/\__/\__/___/\__/\___/ .__/\__/
                                                         /_/
                               Copyright 2015-2022 / EnjoyDigital

                           A small footprint and configurable Logic Analyzer
                                    core powered by Migen & LiteX

[> Intro

LiteScope provides a small footprint and configurable embedded logic analyzer that you can use in your FPGA and aims to provide a free, portable and flexible alternative to vendor's solutions!

LiteScope is part of LiteX libraries whose aims are to lower entry level of complex FPGA cores by providing simple, elegant and efficient implementations of components used in today's SoC such as Ethernet, SATA, PCIe, SDRAM Controller...

Using Migen to describe the HDL allows the core to be highly and easily configurable.

LiteScope can be used as LiteX library or can be integrated with your standard design flow by generating the verilog rtl that you will use as a standard core.

[> Features

• IO peek and poke with LiteScopeIO.
• Logic analyser with LiteScopeAnalyzer:
  • Subsampling.
  • Data storage in Block RAM.
  • Configurable triggers.
• Bridges:
  • UART <--> Wishbone (provided by LiteX)
  • Ethernet <--> Wishbone ("Etherbone") (provided by LiteEth)
  • PCIe <--> Wishbone (provided by LitePCIe)
• Exports formats: .vcd, .sr(sigrok), .csv, .py, etc...

[> Proven

LiteScope has already been used to investigate issues on several commercial or open-source designs.

[> Possible improvements

• add standardized interfaces (AXI, Avalon-ST)
• add protocols analyzers
• add signals injection/generation
• add storage in DRAM
• add storage in HDD with LiteSATA core
• ... See below Support and consulting :)

If you want to support these features, please contact us at florent [AT] enjoy-digital.fr.

[> Getting started

1. Install Python 3.6+ and FPGA vendor's development tools.
2. Install LiteX and the cores by following the LiteX's wiki installation guide.
3. You can find examples of integration of the core with LiteX in LiteX-Boards and in the examples directory.

[> Tests

Unit tests are available in ./test/. To run all the unit tests:

$ ./setup.py test

Tests can also be run individually:

$ python3 -m unittest test.test_name

[> License

LiteScope is released under the very permissive two-clause BSD license. Under the terms of this license, you are authorized to use LiteScope for closed-source proprietary designs. Even though we do not require you to do so, those things are awesome, so please do them if possible:

• tell us that you are using LiteScope
• cite LiteScope in publications related to research it has helped
• send us feedback and suggestions for improvements
• send us bug reports when something goes wrong
• send us the modifications and improvements you have done to LiteScope.

[> Support and consulting

We love open-source hardware and like sharing our designs with others.

LiteScope is developed and maintained by EnjoyDigital.

If you would like to know more about LiteScope or if you are already a happy user and would like to extend it for your needs, EnjoyDigital can provide standard commercial support as well as consulting services.

So feel free to contact us, we'd love to work with you! (and eventually shorten the list of the possible improvements :)

[> Contact

E-mail: florent [AT] enjoy-digital.fr