Accessing GPIOs from RFNoC blocks

[eltos]

Issue Description

We would like to access the GPIOs on an USRP X310 via a custom OOT RFNoC block. More specifically, we would like to read one pin on either of the GPIO banks (preferrably one of the Daugherboards) and manipulate the data stream of the RFNoC block with a custom FPGA implementation.

The RFNoC specification introduces the concept of io_ports which allow access to IO ports like Radio RX/TX, dram etc. However, the GPIOs are currently not exposed to that interface by the core. Thus, the RFNoC block can not access the GPIOs.

Additional Information

It seems that there has been an implementation proposed to access the GPIOs via RFNoC quite a while ago for UHD 3:

• https://github.com/EttusResearch/uhd/pull/206
• https://github.com/EttusResearch/fpga/pull/28

However, it looks like this has not been merged, and is probably not compatible with the new UHD 4. @mbr0wn could you comment on the current status, since you said that "We're working on pulling a change close to this into master."?

Setup Details

• USRP X310 with LFRX and LFTX Daughterboards
• UHD v4.4.0.0-23-g106afff88
• GNU Radio v3.10.5.1

Expected Behavior

GPIO interface exposed to RFNoC via the io_ports mechanism (RFNoC Specification Sec. 2.3.4), i.e. in https://github.com/EttusResearch/uhd/blob/02558b69f73a03318424a52459c6f87d0fc6e18c/host/include/uhd/rfnoc/core/x310_bsp.yml#L20

Such that a custom RFNoC block can access this interface by likewise definition of it's io_ports, i.e. in https://github.com/EttusResearch/uhd/blob/02558b69f73a03318424a52459c6f87d0fc6e18c/host/examples/rfnoc-example/blocks/gain.yml#L46

io_ports:
  gpio:
    type: gpio
    drive: slave

and the connection can be established in the image core definition, i.e. in https://github.com/EttusResearch/uhd/blob/02558b69f73a03318424a52459c6f87d0fc6e18c/host/examples/rfnoc-example/icores/x310_rfnoc_image_core.yml#L100

  - { srcblk: _device_, srcport: gpio_db0_rx,   dstblk: my_custom_block,   dstport: gpio           }

Actual Behaviour

GPIOs are not accessible from an RFNoC block.

Workaround

Following conversations from the mailing list here and also here, it seems the current approach is to manually disconnect the GPIOs in the core FPGA sources and re-route them into the custom RFNoC block manually, by editing files inside this UHD Repository.

Related

• Issue https://github.com/EttusResearch/uhd/issues/605

  io_ports aren't currently supported by rfnoc_create_verilog, so AXI ports have to be added manually.