Implementing the PMod-ALS on the Basys2 Board in VHDL

Question

I'm attempting to use the ALS Pmod with the Basys2 board in VHDL. How would I go about doing so?

Answer 1

With a 3-wire SPI™ communication interface. The Texas Instruments ADC081S021 Single Channel, 50 to 200 ksps, 8-Bit A/D Converter (PDF data sheet) is intended to be polled. Note from the TI datasheet you don't need a full SPI slave interface, it's read only, a simple port. From the schematic for the PMOD-ALS it appears it operates in continuous tracking mode.