μShell Minimalist Shell for Xilinx Microprocessors
TBMG-10933
09/01/2011
- Content
μShell is a lightweight shell environment for engineers and software developers working with embedded microprocessors in Xilinx FPGAs. (μShell has also been successfully ported to run on ARM Cortex-M1 microprocessors in Actel ProASIC3 FPGAs, but without project-integration support.) μShell decreases the time spent performing initial tests of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) designs, simplifies running customizable one-time-only experiments, and provides a familiar-feeling command-line interface. The program comes with a collection of useful functions and enables the designer to add an unlimited number of custom commands, which are callable from the command-line. The commands are parameterizable (using the C-based command-line parameter idiom), so the designer can use one function to exercise hardware with different values. Also, since many hardware peripherals instantiated in FPGAs have reasonably simple register-mapped I/O interfaces, the engineer can edit and view hardware parameter settings at any time without stopping the processor.
- Citation
- "μShell Minimalist Shell for Xilinx Microprocessors," Mobility Engineering, September 1, 2011.