7-segments are one of the basic display units on digital boards that can show decimal numbers. But 1
how can we control a 7-segment in HLS? In this section, 2
I am going to talk about 7-segments and how to use that in HLS. 3
A 7-segment display is a handy and efficient mechanism to show a decimal number or some alphabetical 4
information. 7-segments can be found on a wide range of digital circuits, such as digital 5
clocks and digital control panels. 6
The Basys3 board contains four 7-segment displays connected to the FPGA. And, it is the designer 7
responsibility to design a logic circuit in the FPGA to control these 7-segments to show proper 8
information. 9
The 7-segment logic circuit driver should provide two groups of signals. The first group carries the 10
data, which shows a number on a 7-segment, and the second group are control signals that select 11
the target 12
7-segment. Multiple 7-segments share the same data signals and use them in a multiplex 13
fashion managed by control signals. 14
To fully control a set of 7-segments display, a sequential circuit is required. 15
However, in this section that we are focusing on combinational circuits, I only explain the basic 16
concepts and logic circuits to control one 7-segment display. 17
I will describe more complex sequential circuits to control 7-segments in the Sequential Circuits 18
course, which is the second course of this series on Digital System Design with High-Level Synthesis 19
in FPGA. 20
This section consists of 11 lectures: 21
The current lecture is an introduction to this section. 22
The next lecture defines the structure of a seven-segment and its configurations. 23
The 7-segment code associated with a numerical pattern will be explained in the third lecture. 24
The fourth lecture discusses the 7segment displays configuration and their onboard connections 25
for the Basys3 board. 26
The structure of the HLS code for showing a decimal digit on a single 7-segment is presented 27
in Lecture 5. 28
To represent a multi-digit decimal number, we need to use a proper coding mechanism. Binary Coded 29
Decimal (BCD) is the most common technique to show a decimal number in digital circuits. Lecture 6 30
presents the BCD code . 31
Later through lectures 7 and 8, I will explain two different techniques to convert a binary 32
number into its equivalent BCD. 33
After that, we go through an HLS code that displays a two-digit number on 7-segments. 34
For this purpose, the code activates a single 7-segment at a time. 35
Lecture 10 is organised as a LAB through which I will clarify how to put all concepts and functions 36
together under the Xilinx vivado-HLx environment. 37
Finally, the last lecture contains a few exercises to review all the explained concepts in this section. 38
What is the basic concept and structure behind a 7-segment? 39
I will address this question in the following lecture. 40
These are our takeaway messages: Using 7-segments is one of the common ways to display numerical 41
information on an electronic device. To drive a set of 7-segments 42
two groups of signals are required, Data signals, Control Signals