Used Bittware board

[AllenB]

So, I just learned a potentially expensive lesson:

Bought a used Bittware XUS-P3R board at a very favorable price (for personal use). Went to get the supporting files from Bittware and had to sign up for a developer account, which resulted in a rep reaching out to me. Now I've learned that only the original purchaser is eligible for such delicacies. This seems like a policy mostly intended to place perfectly useful hardware in a 3rd world burn pile rather than somewhere it can be of use.

It's possible to reverse-engineer what FPGA pins are hooked to what devices (DRAM, transceiver cages, clock sources, etc) but what a huge pain in the behind.

Has anyone got some insight into a solution, or perhaps even a Vivado constraints file or similar data?

Thanks,
Allen

[mark03]

That sucks, although I would think an even bigger problem is the lack of a Vivado license.  They don't mention a free license on the product page, even for the original purchaser.  The ultrascale stuff certainly isn't supported by the free webpack version.

[asmi]

The ultrascale stuff certainly isn't supported by the free webpack version.

That's not true. Quite a bit of it is supported in the free version: https://www.xilinx.com/products/design-tools/vivado/vivado-webpack.html#architecture

Zynq® UltraScale™+ MPSoC   
XCZU2EG, XCZU2CG, XCZU3EG, XCZU3CG
XCZU4EG, XCZU4CG, XCZU4EV, XCZU5EG,
XCZU5CG, XCZU5EV, XCZU7EV, XCZU7EG, and XCZU7CG
   
Kintex UltraScale™ FPGA
XCKU025, XCKU035
 
Kintex UltraScale+ FPGA
XCKU3P. XCKU5P

[AllenB]

That sucks, although I would think an even bigger problem is the lack of a Vivado license.  They don't mention a free license on the product page, even for the original purchaser.  The ultrascale stuff certainly isn't supported by the free webpack version.

I've got that taken care of via a previous project. It just never occurred to me that the board details and tools would be kept behind a brick wall. Xilinx and Mellanox, to name two, make their board support stuff freely available for download. So now I've got to find a workaround. Suggestions/links/etc appreciated.

[colorado.rob]

Can you get this information from the person you purchased the board from?  Surely they still have access to it.

[AllenB]

A kind soul helped me out with the documentation. That’s the really critical part. So life is good.

[vincei]

A kind soul helped me out with the documentation. That’s the really critical part. So life is good.

Great news. Sounds like an outfit I'll be avoiding and definitely not recommending at work. Good job, Bitware.

[AllenB]

In their defense, they seem to have a very good product. I can sort of understand having some restrictions on the software, but locking up the specs and documentation is just crazy. Would it have been better for a perfectly usable one-generation-old board to be thrown in the trash? No way.

[Scrts]

In their defense, they seem to have a very good product. I can sort of understand having some restrictions on the software, but locking up the specs and documentation is just crazy. Would it have been better for a perfectly usable one-generation-old board to be thrown in the trash? No way.

Some companies have such policy if their hardware can be used for military, space or some other specific field and can be a national threat if handled to certain countries... Not sure about this one though.

[AllenB]

One last note. I later got in touch with someone at BittWare who was kind enough to set me up with a few helpful parts of their software. It may have helped that I work for a potential customer of their products, but he may well have helped regardless.

So all ends well and I wanted to pass along some kudos.

[hallc]

Can you tell about how you solve the problem. Is the documentation contains detail of hardware design? As I meet the same problem but the model is xusp3s.
Plus: the board I meet seems to be shipped from other country, almost impossible to find the original buyer (

[Foxxz]

Always a good idea to try digging up documents and specs on equipment like that prior to purchase. I have,and probably will, make that mistake again.

[hallc]

Do you mean that there is no way to use the board without the support of original buyer.
And it is accrually a blocked board that I spend much money on