Complete System-on-Chip Linux-based Platform for Measurement and Generation of Time Domain Signals

In this contribution we present a novel implementation of a bundle hardware, firmware and software for the measurement and generation of time domain signals, based on a custom System-on-Chip Linux-based platform. Recently, many solutions have been already proposed both by the industry and by the academia for the measurement and generation of time events, in the forms of full-custom Application-Specific Integrated Circuits and Field Programmable Gate Array IP-Cores. However, while these solutions have proven themselves mostly satisfying in terms of performance, they often lack ease of use, upgrade and interfacing. Indeed, while those implementations are flexible and can be fully customized, integrating them in existing systems is usually, if not always, challenging. To solve these issues, we present here a hybrid hardware and software implementation of Time-to-Digital Converters and Digital-to-Time Converters in Programmable Logic. The main feature is the simplified, yet efficient, interface to other user logic or to the ARM core in the Xilinx Zynq-7000 System-on-Chips, which hosts a Linux-based Operating System. The interfacing of the two worlds is eased by a set of IP-Cores and libraries, so that the performance of the Programmable Logic part can be used and connected easily with the more flexible and user-friendly Processing System. This opens new opportunities, like the use of the Linux Operating System for simple transfer of data through advanced interfaces and protocols, without requiring complex hardware on the Programmable Logic part.