Visible to Intel only — GUID: mwh1391807303628
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Visible to Intel only — GUID: mwh1391807303628
Ixiasoft
2.5. Installing an FPGA Board
To install your board into a Windows host system, invoke the aocl install <path_to_customplatform> utility command.
The steps below outline the board installation procedure. Some Custom Platforms require additional installation tasks. Consult your board vendor's documentation for further information on board installation.
- Follow your board vendor's instructions to connect the FPGA board to your system.
- Download the Custom Platform for your FPGA board from your board vendor's website.
Note: Starting from the 20.3 release, Intel® has removed the support for Windows OpenCL BSPs. Use 20.2 or older OpenCL BSPs available at FPGA Software Download Center as a reference. If you want to migrate your OpenCL BSP to a newer version, follow the recommended steps provided in the Reference Platform Porting Guides available under Intel FPGA SDK for OpenCL documentation.
- Install the Custom Platform in a folder that you own (that is, not a system folder).
You can install multiple Custom Platforms simultaneously on the same system using the aocl install utility. The Custom Platform subdirectory contains the board_env.xml file.
In a system with multiple Custom Platforms, ensure that the host program uses the FPGA Client Driver (FCD) to discover the boards rather than linking to the Custom Platforms' memory-mapped device (MMD) libraries directly. If you have set up FCD correctly for Custom Platform, FCD finds all the installed boards at runtime.
- Add the paths to the Custom Platform libraries (for example, path to the MMD library of the board support package resembles <path_to_customplatform>/windows64/bin) to the PATH environment variable setting.
For information on setting user environment variables and running the init_opencl script, refer to the Setting the Intel® FPGA RTE for OpenCL™ Pro Edition User Environment Variables section.
- Invoke the command aocl install <path_to_customplatform> at a command prompt.
Invoking aocl install <path_to_customplatform> installs both the FCD and a board driver that allows communication between host applications and hardware kernel programs.Remember:
- You need administrative rights to install a board. To run a Windows command prompt as an administrator, click Start > All Programs > Accessories. Under Accessories, right click Command Prompt, In the right-click menu, click Run as Administrator.
On Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 systems, you might also need to disable signed driver verification. For details, see the following articles:
- If the system already has the driver installed and you need to install FCD without the administrative rights, you can invoke the aocl install command with the flag -fcd-only as shown below and follow the prompt for FCD installation:
aocl install <path_to_customplatform> -fcd-only
- You need administrative rights to install a board. To run a Windows command prompt as an administrator, click Start > All Programs > Accessories. Under Accessories, right click Command Prompt, In the right-click menu, click Run as Administrator.
- Query a list of FPGA devices installed in your machine by invoking the aocl diagnose command.
The software generates an output that includes the <device_name>, which is an acl number that ranges from acl0 to acl127.Attention: For possible errors after implementing the aocl diagnose utility, refer to Possible Errors After Running the diagnose Utility section in the Intel® Arria® 10 GX FPGA Development Kit Reference Platform Porting Guide. For more information on querying the <device_name> of your accelerator board, refer to the Querying the Device Name of Your FPGA Board section.
- Verify the successful installation of the FPGA board by invoking the command aocl diagnose <device_name> to run any board vendor-recommended diagnostic test.