Northeastern University

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

ECE U530: HDL and Synthesis

Professor: Miriam Leeser

Alarm Clock VHDL Project

Digilent Spartan- 3
Designed by:
Paul Aaron Bohn

Semester: Fall 2006

Date: 12/14/06

Content

Page

1. Introduction / Objective

2. Design Description

3. Testing Methodology

a.

b.

Design Simulation
i.

Results

ii.

Analysis

Hardware Testing
i.

Results

ii.

Analysis

4. Discussion

10

5. Conclusions and Future Work

12

6. References

13

7. Appendices

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Introduction / Objectives
This design is a time keeping digital alarm clock that displays time in hours and minutes. The goal of this
design is to implement all of the basic features that one would normally expect to find on a standard digital
alarm clock. Features such as standard twelve-hour time, clock/alarm setting functionality, an alarm snooze
feature, and an alarm alert indicator.

List of features to be implemented:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

A.M. P.M. time (12 hour roll over)

Clock setting functionality
Alarm time setting functionality
Alarm indicating LED/Sound output
figure out how to save design to on board prom
special alarm clock feature making use of a random number generator

The design has been implemented on a Spartan-3 FPGA development board. The following diagram shows
the physical alarm clock interface.

( Figure 1 )

How to use:
A user should be able to set the clock by holding down the clock set button and incrementing the
appropriate hour/minute buttons.

Design Description
This design is implemented on a Digilent Spartan-3 development board. The development board contains
many inputs and outputs that aid an engineer in learning how to use the Spartan-3 FPGA. The following
I/O were used for this design: a onboard 50 MHz crystal oscillator clock, three slide switches, four
momentary-contact push button switches, two individual LEDs, and a four-character, seven-segment
display. The pin locations of the I/O that an engineer wants to implement must be defined in a constraint
file. These pin location values are listed in the Spartan-3 Starter Kit Board User Guide. This user guide
can be accessed online at the manufactures website. See the references section for more details. The
constraint file for this design is located at the end of the report. See p.10 in the Appendices.
Below is the VHDL entity that describes the same design I/O that is in the constraint file.
entity clock is port (
clk50in: in std_logic;
-- 50 Mhz XTAL
btn_in: in std_logic_vector(3 downto 0); -- 4 pushbutton inputs
sw_in:
in std_logic_vector(7 downto 0); -- 8 switch inputs
digit_out: out std_logic_vector(3 downto 0); -- digit drivers
led_out: out std_logic_vector(7 downto 0); -- 8 board mounted LEDs
seg_out: out std_logic_vector(7 downto 0)); -- segment drivers
end clock;
A full list of the inputs and output and their purpose is displayed below. This list corresponds with the
entity above, the design constraint file located on p.10 in the Appendices and Figure 1.

Inputs:
1.

2.

Momentary Push Buttons:

a. Alarm Set { btn(3) }
b. Time Set { btn(2) }
c. Hours
{ btn(1) }
d. Minutes { btn(0) }
Slide Switch:
a. Alarm on/off
b. Snooze
c. Reset

Outputs:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Seven-Segment Display
AM/PM indicator LED led(7)
Alarm on/off indicator led(0)
Blinking LED second indicating decimal point
Blinking Board mounted second indicated LEDs
Alarm Alert ( LED / Sound)

Design Details - How the Clock was Designed:

The original code for this design project was written by Xilinx and can be found on the internet (see the
reference section for more details). This design is broken up behaviorally in a series of processes.
For clarity, I have put meaningful comments above each process and throughout the VHDL program
code (see p.1-p.12 in the Appendices).
The first task in the design process was to divide down the board mounted clock oscillator to get a clock
signal that occurs once every minute. Next, I wrote a 12 hour am/pm time counter algorithm. This counter
process is driven by the signal that occurs every sixty seconds. Latter, I rewrote portions of the sevensegment display code so that it would not display a leading zero. I also removed some code that created
chasing LED lights on the board. The next design stage was the development of a time setting state
machine. I had to figure out how to control this state using the board mounted momentary push buttons.
A diagram of the state machine directly follows this page. After the previous step was completed, I created
the enable signals to control each process using the state machine. At that time, I developed a minutes
counting process that increments the minutes. I made some additional modifications to the code, changing
the constraint file and signal naming. After this point, I began to have problems moving the project
forward. I tried a myriad of solution paths to none of which worked as intended.

Synthesis:
The designs synthesis report accurately displays the hardware I wanted to infer (see p.16-p.18 in the
Appendices).

State Machines:

Testing Methodology
Hardware Testing:
The primary means of testing for this design was using hardware. The design was implemented by
synthesizing the VHDL code, then generating a bit file using Xilinx ISE tools. This bit file was
downloaded to the Spartin-3 development using Xilinx iMPACT. To complete the program download, I
had to power the FPGA board by plugging it into an electrical outlet and hooking it up on end of the JTAG
cable to the FPGA board and the other end to the computers parallel port.

Results
The design performs as to be expected. The clocks display is fully functional. It is capable of using all
four digits of the seven-segment display and the board mounted am/pm LED indicator. The reset switch
works and the state machine does change state when the user presses the push buttons (btn2 btn1 and btn0).
This is indicated by LED0, LED1, and LED2.

Analysis
Overall, the design performs the basic clock functions well. Sometimes the clock freezes while the user
presses the momentary pushbuttons. This might be caused by unintentional signals generated by a noisy
digital contact as the switch is pressed. To eliminate this problem, one would have to de-bounce the push
buttons in the software.

Design Simulation:
The VHDL test bench simulated by using the ModelSim by Xilinx. Software test vectors for the state
machine were not required because I did not get far enough in the design process, and the results were
already seen in previous hardware tests.

Results
This simulation confirmed what the hardware tests were showing. Page 13 in the Appendix is a zoomed
out view of the clock wave forms. From this view, the repetitive patterns of each waveform can be
observed. Page 14 and 15 offer more detail by displaying the binary values of the signals in different
states. One can observe the signals h2,h1,m2,m1 at the expected initial starting value of 12:01, the board
mounted LED will be powered by the led_out signal, the digit of seven-segment display is controlled by the
digit_out signal, and the corresponding seven-segment decoder output signal seg_out for each digit. One
can also observer the alternating decimal point signal dp.

Analysis
The simulation results did not prove to be as useful as I would have liked. Since the clock device operates
in real time, it makes the simulations very long. The more interesting events happen every 60 seconds,
which is an extremely long time to run a simulation. This simulation provided waveform data that is
located at the end of the report. (see p.13-p.15 in the Appendices).

Discussion
Lessons Learned:
Much was learned while developing this project. I learned how to implement hardware using VHDL code.
This includes learning about implementation of constraint file, input buffers, and output buffers. I learned
how to use the development boards display by multiplexing the digit signal to the 7-segment decoder. I
learned how to divide down the boards internal clock so I could use it in my design.
For the first time, I learned about and used some programming constructs that I was unfamiliar with such as
generate and shared variables.
While working on this design, I referenced many VHDL sources including websites, course notes, course
book, and the Spartan-3 Starter Kit Board User Guide.

What was Difficult:

Unfortunately, the design is incomplete. My goal was to use the clock set state machine to activate and
deactivate the time_counter, minute_counter, and hour_counter processes using enable signals. (time_en,
min_en, hour_en) Each of these processes should be able to modify the hour/minute data depending on
whether or not they are enabled. I would like to save and modify this data using the following signals h2,
h1, m2, m1. This functionality was never achieved.
I had much difficultly implementing the design using this approach. I have been considering many
approaches to solve this problem, but most of these solution paths seem to be overly complex. That is why
this project is not fully functional.
Some of the possible solution paths that I tried are listed below.
1.
shared variables
2.
Memory (RAM)
3.
state Machine
4.
registers
5.
multiplexers
6.
structural description
7.
latch flag scheme

What I Would Have Liked to Learn in Class:

I would have liked to gain more hardware implementation knowledge. I would find it incredibly
fascinating to spend some time on every input and output that the Digilent Spartan-3 development board
offers. I am most interested in learning how to use the VGA port, RS-232, and PS2. I would also like to
learn how to use the FPGA to emulate various types of hardware an old game console, arcade game,
microprocessor, etc. I know where I would like to go with the knowledge I have learned thus far, but this
certainly goes beyond the scope of an intro VHDL course.

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Design Status:
Current Questions:
1. Will a 50MHz divided clock give a true 1 Hz signal that is equivalent to one second? If not, can I
improve the performance?
2. Should I create multiple VHDL files and link them with a structural description?
a. State machine
b. Counters
3. I do not know why my state machine stops working after pushing repetitively on the push buttons.
The buttons might need to be de-bounced.
4. How do you store and pass values between processes?
5. The clock sometimes randomly freezes

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Conclusions and Future Work

Again, the clocks display is fully functional. It is capable of using the all four digits of the seven-segment
display and the board mounted am/pm LED indicator.

Design Steps:
Completed:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

Extensive internet research of alarm clock design

Obtain a thorough understanding of the Xilinx clock code (Digital Clock using Multiplexed 7Segment Display) obtained at: http://www.xilinx.com/products/boards/DO-SPAR3DK/reference_designs.htm
Begin to adding useful comments into the clock.vhdl code.
Generate a 60 Hertz minutes signal from clock
Generate a 100 Hertz test signal from clock
Change clock to display hh::mm format
Change rollover for hours and minutes to 24 hour time
Develop a more complete input/output list
Develop a state machine ideas for clock
Successful FPGA board implementation
Remove board mounted LED light chasing code
Keep LED decimal point flashing code
Write a time counter algorithm
Implement a 12 hour am/pm mode with am LED indicator (rewrote clock counter)
Change the most significant LED digit (7seg) to be non-active when the number one or two are
not being displayed.
Change the numeric order of the push buttons to match what is labeled on the Xilinx Spartan-3
board
Change the push button signal assignment from pb to btn to match the Spartan-3 board labels.
Develop a set-time FSM
Create a up_minutes process to increment the minutes
Write a VHDL testbench

If I had more time to work on this project, I would consider doing the following tasks.

To Do:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

Figure out how to store and pass time data between processes.
Create an up_hour process
Figure out how to set the clocks minutes and hours by storing them in a register
Fix am/pm problem ( could use led(7) as a control signal for time counter)
Write processes for each state. (i.e. set_time, up_minutes, up_hours )
Make use of newly freed up board mounted LEDs to display alarm on/off indicator.
Continue to refine code comments
Develop alarm FSM and functionality
Might rewrite the time algorithms
Confirm the clock is keeping accurate time.
Debounce the board mounted push buttons

My lack of time and knowledge has prevented me from completing this design. I have a suspicion that
there exists much simpler design approaches. I think an FPGA microprocessor based emulation might offer
a better solution path. If I were to continue this project, I would re-evaluate the entire design method by

12

increasing my knowledge of VHDL, logic design techniques, clock designs, and computer architecture.
These tools would give me the ability to create a logical design.
Although the project is incomplete, it has afforded me with much more knowledge about this particular
problem. My knowledge of the VHDL language has improved vastly.

References
Digilent Inc.
http://www.digilentinc.com/

Digital Clock using Multiplexed 7-Segment Display:

The original code for this project was written by Xilinx and can be found at the following website:

http://www.xilinx.com/products/boards/DO-SPAR3-DK/reference_designs.htm

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Appendices
Equipment
1. IBM PC compatible unit: computer box, monitor, mouse, keyboard, running
Windows XP Professional.
2. Hardware Device:
a) Device

Family: Spartan3

b) Device:

xc3s200

c) Package: pq208
3. Software: Xilinx Foundation Series F6.2i.

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