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| 18 | Developing Solutions for the RFSoC Radio Frequency System-on-Chip (RFSoC) is a complex heterogeneous mixed-signal system on a chip. However, developing solutions for the RFSoC does not have to be complicated, thanks to the large ecosystem of development tools supporting it. Xilinx provides an extensive development ecosystem to support RFSoC developers, including development tools, intellectual property, development boards, evaluation tools, and system planning tools that enable solution creation and device characterization. Developing RFSoC Solutions All RFSoC developments require creating a hardware configuration that defines the processing system's settings and, of course, the programmable logic design. To support the creation of the RFSoC and programmable logic design, Xilinx provides a range of intellectual property (IP) blocks that implement the design's critical features. These IP blocks enable the configuration of the processing system, Soft-Decision Forward Error Correction (SD-FEC), and RF data converters. To ease the programmable logic design development, Vivado's IP integrator provides a graphical way to design the programmable logic solution and an automated connection and IP block configuration that considers the target board. Vivado supports the development using traditional hardware description languages (HDL) and high-level languages to develop custom modules for processing or generating RF data. Development of custom modules using higher-level approaches can take several methods. Vivado HLS, for example, allows developers to use C/ C++ to capture the desired behavior. Additionally, the Xilinx System Generator can be leveraged, enabling MATLAB- based (matrix laboratory) designs to be implemented within the programmable logic. RFSoC designs and IP are highly software configurable. To help developers create embedded adaptable software solutions, Xilinx provides both bare-metal and embedded Linux drivers to configure the SD-FEC and RF data converters. Xilinx also provides a rapid prototyping environment called PYNQ, enabling developers to use Python and Jupyter Notebooks to control and configure the RF data convertor. Such a framework allows developers to rapidly develop prototype systems and algorithms before determining the algorithm's elements, which can be accelerated in the programmable logic. Implementing RFSoC Hardware Solutions Of course, target hardware must be able to leverage the development tools and implement an RFSoC solution. While the final target might be a custom RFSoC development, Xilinx provides several development boards that span the different RFSoC generations.

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