Xlnk

The Xlnk class Is used to allocated contiguous memory.

IP connected to the AXI Master (HP or ACP ports) has access to PS DRAM. Before IP in the PL accesses DRAM, some memory must first be allocated (reserved) for the IP to use and the size, and address of the memory passed to the IP. An array in Python, or Numpy, will be allocated somewhere in virtual memory. The physical memory address of the allocated memory must be provided to IP in the PL.

Xlnk can allocate memory, and also provide the physical pointer. It also allocates contiguous memory which is more efficient for PL IP to use.

Xlnk can allocate arrays using the Python NumPy package. This allows the data type, and size/shape of the array to be specified using NumPy.

Xlnk is also used implicitly by the DMA class to allocate memory.

Example

Create an Xlnk instance and use cma_array() to allocate a unsigned 32-bit int contiguous block of memory of 5 elements:

Allocating the memory buffer:

from pynq import Xlnk
import numpy as np

xlnk = Xlnk()
input_buffer = xlnk.cma_array(shape=(5,), dtype=np.uint32)

physical_address property of the memory buffer:

input_buffer.physical_address

Writing data to the buffer:

for i in range(5):
    input_buffer[i] = i

# Input buffer:  [0 1 2 3 4]

More information about the MMIO module can be found in the pynq.xlnk Module sections