ZCU102 Quick start

All the products described on this page include ESD (electrostatic discharge) sensitive devices. Electrostatic charges as high as 4000V readily accumulate on the human body or test equipment and can discharge without detection. Although the boards feature ESD protection circuitry, permanent damage may occur on devices subjected to high-energy electrostatic discharges. Therefore, proper ESD precautions are recommended to avoid performance degradation or loss of functionality. This includes removing static charge on external equipment, cables, or antennas before connecting to the device.

This guide provides quick instructions on how to setup the EVAL-ADRV904x on:

• ZCU102

Using Linux as software

Necessary files

The following files are needed for the system to boot:

• HDL boot image: BOOT.BIN

• Linux Kernel image: Image

• Linux device tree: system.dtb

They can either be taken from the SD card – already generated by us, or you can build them manually.

In the following sections, we explain how to take them from the SD card.

Instructions on how to manually build the boot files from source can be found here:

• Build ZynqMP / MPSoC Linux kernel and devicetree

• ADRV904x HDL reference design build documentation. More HDL build details at Build an HDL project.

Required Software

• SD Card 16GB imaged with Kuiper (check out that guide on how to do it, then come back to this section)

• A UART terminal (Putty/Tera Term/Minicom, etc.) with baud rate 115200 (8N1)

Required Hardware

• AMD Xilinx ZCU102 Rev 1.0 or later FPGA board and its power supply

• EVAL-ADRV904x FMC evaluation board

• SD card with at least 16GB of memory

• Micro-USB cable (UART)

• LAN cable (Ethernet)

• (Optional) USB keyboard & mouse and a HDMI compatible monitor

More details as to why you need these, can be found at Prerequisites.

Testing

Creating the setup

Follow the steps in this order, to avoid damaging the components:

1. Connect the EVAL-ADRV904x FMC board to the ZCU102 HPC1 FMC1 socket

2. Insert SD card into the SD card socket on the FPGA

3. Configure ZCU102 for SD card boot mode (mode SW6[4:1] switch in the position OFF,OFF,OFF,ON as seen in the below picture)

   

4. Plug-in an Ethernet cable from your router/switch to the Ethernet port on the FPGA board

5. Connect USB UART J83 (Micro-USB) to your host PC

6. (Optional) Connect a monitor to the FPGA by HDMI, and a mouse and a keyboard

7. Turn on the power switch on the FPGA board

8. Observe Kernel and serial console output messages on your terminal (use the first ttyUSB or COM port registered)

Boot messages

The following is what is printed in the serial console, after you have connected to the proper ttyUSB or COM port:

Complete boot log

Zynq MP First Stage Boot Loader
Release 2025.1   Dec  9 2025  -  14:14:37
NOTICE:  BL31: Non secure code at 0x8000000
NOTICE:  BL31: v2.12.0(release):xilinx-v2025.1
NOTICE:  BL31: Built : 11:08:56, Aug 12 2025
PMUFW:  v1.1


U-Boot 2018.01-21442-gf06dec3cab (Feb 13 2025 - 17:12:07 +0200) Xilinx ZynqMP ZCU102 revA

I2C:   ready
DRAM:  4 GiB
EL Level:       EL2
Chip ID:        zu9eg
MMC:   sdhci@ff170000: 0 (SD)
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

In:    serial@ff000000
Out:   serial@ff000000
Err:   serial@ff000000
Bootmode: LVL_SHFT_SD_MODE1
Net:   ZYNQ GEM: ff0e0000, phyaddr 15, interface rgmii-id

Warning: ethernet@ff0e0000 using MAC address from ROM
eth0: ethernet@ff0e0000
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc0 is current device
...
reading Image
44519936 bytes read in 2980 ms (14.2 MiB/s)
## Flattened Device Tree blob at 04000000
   Booting using the fdt blob at 0x4000000
   Loading Device Tree to 000000000fff0000, end 000000000ffff0f4 ... OK

Starting kernel ...

[    0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0000000000 [0x410fd034]
[    0.000000] Linux version 6.12.0-27064-g9495a3d76542 (spopa@HYB-JRXo5UEs61B) #16 SMP Tue Feb 17 17:01:10 EET 2026
[    0.000000] Machine model: ZynqMP ZCU102 Rev1.0
[    0.000000] earlycon: cdns0 at MMIO 0x00000000ff000000 (options '115200n8')
...
[    1.017619] jesd204: created con: id=0, topo=0, link=0, /axi/spi@ff040000/ad9528-1@1 <-> /fpga-axi@0/axi-adxcvr-tx@84a80000
[    1.028155] jesd204: created con: id=1, topo=0, link=2, /axi/spi@ff040000/ad9528-1@1 <-> /fpga-axi@0/axi-adxcvr-rx@84a60000
[    1.039223] jesd204: created con: id=2, topo=0, link=0, /fpga-axi@0/axi-adxcvr-tx@84a80000 <-> /fpga-axi@0/axi-jesd204-tx@84a90000
[    1.050895] jesd204: created con: id=3, topo=0, link=2, /fpga-axi@0/axi-adxcvr-rx@84a60000 <-> /fpga-axi@0/axi-jesd204-rx@84aa0000
[    1.062597] jesd204: created con: id=4, topo=0, link=0, /fpga-axi@0/axi-jesd204-tx@84a90000 <-> /fpga-axi@0/axi-adrv904x-tx-hpc@84a04000
[    1.074788] jesd204: created con: id=5, topo=0, link=2, /fpga-axi@0/axi-jesd204-rx@84aa0000 <-> /axi/spi@ff040000/adrv904x-phy@0
[    1.086273] jesd204: created con: id=6, topo=0, link=0, /fpga-axi@0/axi-adrv904x-tx-hpc@84a04000 <-> /axi/spi@ff040000/adrv904x-phy@0
[    1.098218] jesd204: /axi/spi@ff040000/adrv904x-phy@0: JESD204[0:0] transition uninitialized -> initialized
[    1.107895] jesd204: /axi/spi@ff040000/adrv904x-phy@0: JESD204[0:2] transition uninitialized -> initialized
[    1.117583] jesd204: found 7 devices and 1 topologies
...
[    1.940648] axi_sysid 85000000.axi-sysid-0: [adrv904x] [JESD_MODE=64B66B RX:RATE=24.33 M=8 L=4 S=1 NP=16 TPL_WIDTH= LINKS=1 TX:RATE=24.33 M=8 L=4 S=1 NP=16 TPL_WIDTH= LINKS=1] on [zcu102]
...
[   29.767179] systemd[1]: Failed to look up module alias 'autofs4': Function not implemented
[   29.800681] systemd[1]: systemd 247.3-7+rpi1+deb11u2 running in system mode.

Welcome to Kuiper GNU/Linux 11.2 (bullseye)!

...
My IP address is 192.168.100.2 169.254.173.46

Raspbian GNU/Linux 11 analog ttyPS0

analog login:

Default login credentials:

• Username: analog

• Password: analog

Verifying the setup

After logging in, you can verify that the ADRV904x device is properly detected by the Linux kernel:

~$

iio_info | grep iio:device

iio:device0: xilinx-ams
iio:device1: adrv904x-phy
iio:device2: axi-adrv904x-rx-hpc (buffer capable)
iio:device3: axi-adrv904x-tx-hpc (buffer capable)

ADI IIO Oscilloscope

You can connect to IIO Oscilloscope either remotely, or locally.

Remote

The IIO Oscilloscope application can be used to connect to another platform that has a connected device, to configure the device and read data from it. This application is not for performance testing, but rather showcasing the basic features.

Please see IIO Oscilloscope documentation for installation steps and more details.

Build and start osc on a network-enabled Linux host. For Windows computers, open the application from the start menu.

Once the application is launched, go to Settings > Connect > URI and type “ip:” then the IP address of the target in the pop-up window. This IP can be found out with a command from the previous section of this documentation.

Locally

If you connected an HDMI monitor to your FPGA and a mouse and a keyboard (both on one dongle), you can navigate the ADI Kuiper Linux that is on the FPGA.

Going to the top left corner icon (the menu icon), search for IIO Oscilloscope. Opening it will automatically connect to the setup and you can use the application.

About the IIO devices

Main receivers RX1 through RX8 are handled by the axi-adrv904x-rx-hpc IIO device.

Channels:

• IIO device channel: axi-adrv904x-rx-hpc

• Receiver inputs:

  • {voltage0_i, voltage0_q}: RX1

  • {voltage1_i, voltage1_q}: RX2

  • {voltage2_i, voltage2_q}: RX3

  • {voltage3_i, voltage3_q}: RX4

  • {voltage4_i, voltage4_q}: RX5

  • {voltage5_i, voltage5_q}: RX6

  • {voltage6_i, voltage6_q}: RX7

  • {voltage7_i, voltage7_q}: RX8

Transmitters TX1 through TX8 are handled by the axi-adrv904x-tx-hpc IIO device.

Channels:

• IIO device channel: axi-adrv904x-tx-hpc

• Transmitter outputs:

  • {voltage0_i, voltage0_q}: TX1

  • {voltage1_i, voltage1_q}: TX2

  • {voltage2_i, voltage2_q}: TX3

  • {voltage3_i, voltage3_q}: TX4

  • {voltage4_i, voltage4_q}: TX5

  • {voltage5_i, voltage5_q}: TX6

  • {voltage6_i, voltage6_q}: TX7

  • {voltage7_i, voltage7_q}: TX8

NLS profile (with observation receiver)

When using the NLS device tree (zynqmp-zcu102-rev10-adrv904x-nls.dts), the observation receiver path is enabled. The observation receiver IIO device appears as an additional device:

~$

iio_info | grep iio:device

iio:device0: xilinx-ams
iio:device1: adrv904x-phy
iio:device2: axi-adrv904x-rx-hpc (buffer capable)
iio:device3: axi-adrv904x-tx-hpc (buffer capable)
iio:device4: axi-adrv904x-obs-hpc (buffer capable)

To use the NLS profile, copy system.dtb built from zynqmp-zcu102-rev10-adrv904x-nls.dts and DeviceProfileTest_NLS.bin renamed to DeviceProfileTest.bin to the SD card boot partition.

Using no-OS as software

Necessary files

The following files are needed for the system to boot:

• HDL boot file: system_top.xsa

• no-OS project: projects/adrv904x

Instructions on how to build the boot files from source can be found here:

• adrv904x no-OS Sample Project. More no-OS build details at No-OS Build Guide.

• ADRV904x HDL reference design. More HDL build details at Build an HDL project.

Required Software

• AMD Xilinx Vivado and Vitis (downloading Vitis from here will include Vivado as well)

• An UART terminal (Putty/Tera Term/Minicom, etc.), Baud rate 115200 (8N1)

Required Hardware

• AMD Xilinx ZCU102 Rev 1.0 FPGA board and its power supply

• EVAL-ADRV904x FMC evaluation board

• 2x Micro-USB cables, one for UART and one for JTAG

• (Optional) USB keyboard & mouse and a HDMI-compatible monitor

More details as to why you need these, can be found at Prerequisites.

Note

In Vitis IDE, set the HEAP size to 0x800000 and add the math library (-lm) to the GCC linker flags. The evaluation board connects to the FMC HPC1 connector on the ZCU102.

Demo applications

Three demo applications are available in the no-OS project, selected via Makefile variables:

• Basic example: Initializes all components and enables the JESD204 link. The transmitter outputs a DDS waveform with default parameters.

• DMA example: Transmits sinewave patterns via DMA from lookup tables and captures receive data to memory for analysis (exportable as CSV).

• IIO example: Launches an IIOD server on the board, allowing connection via an IIO client such as IIO Oscilloscope to configure the transceiver and capture data. The IIOD server runs at 921600 baud.

Only one example can be active at a time.

Switching between use cases

Since no-OS runs bare-metal without a file system, all profile and firmware data is compiled into the binary as C headers in projects/adrv904x/src/common/firmware.

The entire device configuration for a given use case is contained in the profile binary (DeviceProfileTest.bin), which is generated using the ADI evaluation software (see the ADRV904x Evaluation System User Guide). The stream image (stream_image.bin) is also specific to a configuration. The firmware files (ADRV9040_FW.bin, ADRV9040_DFE_CALS_FW.bin) are typically static and supplied by ADI.

Radio control and JESD204 parameters (LO frequencies, channel masks, lane rates) are set directly in projects/adrv904x/src/common/initdata.c as C structs (deviceInitStruct, utilityInit).

To switch to a different use case:

1. Generate the new DeviceProfileTest.bin and stream_image.bin using the ADI evaluation software.

2. Convert each binary to a C header using xxd:

   xxd -i DeviceProfileTest.bin > DeviceProfileTest.h
   xxd -i stream_image.bin > stream_image.h
   

3. Copy the generated headers into projects/adrv904x/src/common/firmware, replacing the existing files.

4. If radio control or JESD204 parameters also changed, update the corresponding fields in initdata.c (deviceInitStruct and utilityInit).

5. Rebuild the project.