Misc fixes and improvements

sections/soc/soc.tex

@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ Others   & SD card, VGA & Ethernet \\
 \label{tab:devboard-comparison}
 \end{table}
 
-While the Digilent board offers fewer IO options, the DDR3 memory can be interfaced using Free memory cores and allows for much larger programs to be loaded, possibly even a full operating system. The missing VGA port has been substituted by a HDMI-compatible DVI interface that is accessible through one of the high-speed PMOD connectors.
+While the Digilent board offers fewer IO options, the DDR3 memory can be interfaced using Free memory cores and allows for much larger programs to be loaded, possibly even a full operating system. The missing VGA port has been substituted by an HDMI-compatible DVI interface that is accessible through one of the high-speed PMOD connectors.
 
 \section{Tooling}
 
@@ -83,33 +83,43 @@ With these two pieces in place, the project was switched over to a completely Fr
 
 \section{Peripherals}
 
+The complete FPGA design consists not only of the CPU core, but a number of components that allow it to operate and communicate with the outside environment. They are connected using a shared 32-bit bus.
+
 \subsection{UART}
 
 % TODO
 
 \subsection{DVI graphics}
 
-The graphics submodule consists of a VGA timing generator, a text renderer with a font ROM, and a DVI encoder frontend:
+As can be seen in \autoref{fig:video-core-diagram}, the graphics module consists of several subcomponents:
+
+\begin{itemize}
+ \item The VGA timing generator creates the impulses and counters necessary to drive a VGA-, DVI- or HDMI-based display
+ \item The text renderer draws text characters onto the screen using a built-in font ROM
+ \item The TMDS encoder frontend converts the internal parallel signals into a set of high-speed serial streams necessary for DVI or HDMI.
+\end{itemize}
 
 \begin{figure}[h]
 \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{graphics.png}
 \caption{Block diagram of the video core}
+\label{fig:video-core-diagram}
 \end{figure}
 
 \subsubsection{VGA timing}
 
 The timing of VGA signals dates back to analog monitors. Even though this original purpose is only very rarely used nowadays, the timing remained the same for analog and digital DVI all the way to modern HDMI.
 
-In analog screens, the electron beams (one for each primary color red, green and blue) scan across the screen a single horizontal line at a time while being modulated by the color values, resulting in a continuous mixture of all three components. When a beam reaches the end of a scanline, it continues outside the visible area for a small distance (the ``Front Porch''), is then sent to the beginning of the next line by a pulse of the hsync (Horizontal Sync) signal, and draws the next line after another short off-screen period (the ``Back Porch'').
+In analog screens, the electron beams (one for each primary colour red, green and blue) scan across the screen a single horizontal line at a time while being modulated by the colour values, resulting in a continuous mixture of all three components. When a beam reaches the end of a scanline, it continues outside the visible area for a small distance (the ``Front Porch''), is then sent to the beginning of the next line by a pulse of the hsync (Horizontal Sync) signal, and draws the next line after another short off-screen period (the ``Back Porch'').
 
 The same applies to vertical timings: after the beam reaches the end of the last line, a few off-screen Front Porch lines follow, then a pulse of the vsync (Vertical Sync) signal sends the beam to the top of the screen, where the first line of the next frame is drawn after several invisible Back Porch lines.
 
 \begin{figure}[h]
 \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{vga_timing.png}
 \caption{Diagram of VGA timing intervals}
+\label{fig:vga-timing}
 \end{figure}
 
-The VGA timing module generates these hsync and vsync signals, along with a blanking signal (active during any front porch, sync and back porch) and, while in the visible area (i.e. not blanking), the row and column of the current pixel relative to the visible area.
+The VGA timing module generates these hsync and vsync signals as visualized in \autoref{fig:vga-timing}, along with a blanking signal (active during any front porch, sync and back porch) and, while in the visible area (i.e. not blanking), the row and column of the current pixel relative to the visible area.
 
 \subsubsection{Text renderer}
 
@@ -118,17 +128,18 @@ The text renderer converts a logical representation of a character, such as its
 \begin{figure}[h]
 \includegraphics[width=0.7\textwidth]{text_renderer.png}
 \caption{Block diagram of the text renderer}
+\label{fig:text-renderer-diagram}
 \end{figure}
 
-First, the current pixel coordinate (created by the VGA timing generator) is split up into two parts: the character index, which specifies the on-screen character the pixel belongs to, and the offset of the pixel in this character. The character index is passed to the text RAM, which contains the codepoint for each on-screen character. This codepoint, along with the pixel offset, is looked up in the font ROM to determine the color of the pixel.
+As can be seen in \autoref{fig:text-renderer-diagram}, the current pixel coordinate (created by the VGA timing generator) is split up into two parts: the character index, which specifies the on-screen character the pixel belongs to, and the offset of the pixel within this character. The character index is passed to the text RAM, which contains the codepoint for each on-screen character. This codepoint, along with the pixel offset, is looked up in the font ROM to determine the colour of the pixel.
 
 \subsubsection{TMDS encoder}
 
-DVI and HDMI are serial digital transmission standards. Three data lines (corresponding to red, green, and blue channels) along with a clock line transmit all color information as well as synchronization signals. The encoding used for these signals is Transition-minimized differential signaling (TMDS). It is a kind of 8b/10b encoding (transforming every 8-bit chunk of data into a 10-bit chunk) that is designed to minimize the number of changes of the output signal.
+DVI and HDMI are serial digital transmission standards. Three data lines (corresponding to red, green, and blue channels) along with a clock line transmit all colour information as well as synchronization signals. The encoding used for these signals is Transition-Minimized Differential Signaling (TMDS). It is a kind of 8b/10b encoding (transforming every 8-bit chunk of data into a 10-bit chunk) that is designed to minimize the number of changes of the output signal.
 
 \subsection{Ethernet}
 
-The Arty development board contains an RJ-45 Ethernet jack connected to an Ethernet PHY, which exposes a standardized media-independent interface (MII) to the FPGA. The LiteEth core~\cite{liteeth}, which is released under a Free Software license, is used to integrate the Ethernet interface into the SoC.
+The Arty development board contains an RJ-45 Ethernet jack connected to an Ethernet PHY. The PHY handles the physical connection to an copper twisted pair Ethernet network (Layer 1 of the OSI model) and exposes a standardized media-independent interface (MII) to the FPGA. The LiteEth core~\cite{liteeth}, which is released under a Free Software license, is used to integrate the Ethernet interface into the SoC.
 
 \subsection{WS2812 driver}
 
@@ -145,9 +156,9 @@ A hardware driver for WS2812 serially-addressable RGB LEDs is also included in t
 \label{fig:ws2812_timing}
 \end{figure}
 
-The driver is designed to be attached to external circuitry that provides color data for any given LED index (address). This can either be discrete logic that generates the color value from the address directly, or a memory that stores a separate color value for each address.
+The driver is designed to be attached to external circuitry that provides colour data for any given LED index (address). This can either be discrete logic that generates the colour value from the address directly, or a memory that stores a separate colour value for each address.
 
-The LEDs are controlled using a simple one-wire serial protocol. After a reset (long period of logic 0), the data for all LEDs is transmitted serially in one single blob. Each LED consumes and stores the first 24 bits of the stream and applies them as its color value (8 bits each for red, green, blue), all following bits are passed through unmodified. The second LED thus uses the first 24 bits of the stream it receives, but since the first LED already dropped its data, these are actually the second set of 24 bits of the source data.
+The LEDs are controlled using a simple one-wire serial protocol. After a reset (long period of logic 0), the data for all LEDs is transmitted serially in one single blob. Each LED consumes and stores the first 24 bits of the stream and applies them as its colour value (8 bits each for red, green, blue), all following bits are passed through unmodified. The second LED thus uses the first 24 bits of the stream it receives, but since the first LED already dropped its data, these are actually the second set of 24 bits of the source data.
 
 Every bit is encoded as a period of logic 1, followed by a period of logic 0. The timing of these sections determines the value, see \autoref{fig:ws2812_timing}.
 
@@ -197,6 +208,6 @@ Finally, two more assertions are used to give hints to the formal verification a
 \lstinputlisting[
     style=vhdlstyle,
     label={lst:alu-formal},
-    caption={Formal verification block for ALU},
+    caption={Formal verification block for the ALU},
 ]{alu_formal.vhd}
 \end{document}