Xilinx Zynq: generated bitstreams do not work with (recent?) FPGA Manager

[nfbraun]

On Xilinx Zynq, the task of loading bitstreams into the programmable logic part
of the device is typically handled by the Linux kernel, via the FPGA Manager
framework.

The bitstreams that nMigen generates (via Vivado) fail to load through FPGA
Manager, with an error message like this:

fpga_manager fpga0: writing zynq_image.bin to Xilinx Zynq FPGA Manager
fpga_manager fpga0: Invalid bitstream, could not find a sync word. Bitstream must be a byte swapped .bin file
fpga_manager fpga0: Error preparing FPGA for writing

As the error message says, that is due to the fact that FPGA Manager
expects a byte swapped .bin file, but the file produced by Vivados
write_bitstream -bin_file command is not byte swapped. The (obsolete) xdevcfg
interface in ancient Xilinx kernels seems to have detected this (via the sync
word) and corrected it if required, but this feature does not seem to have made
it into FPGA Manager. (See https://lore.kernel.org/patchwork/patch/605909/ for
the discussion.)

There is a tool called fpga-bit-to-bin.py floating around on the Internet
that people use to generate the correct .bin files; however, it can also be
done directly from Vivado.

My suggested fix would be to not generate the .bin file via the -bin_file
option to write_bitstream (in nmigen/vendor/xilinx_7series.py), but instead
issue a separate command to generate it,

write_cfgmem -force -format bin -interface smapx32 -disablebitswap -loadbit "up 0 {{name}}.bit" {{name}}.bin

This would give a .bin file that works with FPGA Manager.

If there are uses that require a non byte swapped .bin file, one could also
generate two different .bin files, but I don't think that is required (the
xdevcfg interface works with both variants).

If this solution is deemed acceptable, I can submit a PR.

[whitequark]

Your solution seems good to me.

[TanviWani]

when i write "cat /root/{{name}}.bin > /dev/xdevcfg nothing happens to the output or terminal and "echo {{name}}.bin > /sys/class/fpga_manager/fpga0/firmware" gives invalid argument