Welcome New Members!

11 Nov 2014

Greetings New Members!

Welcome to the element14 Community, the first online community specifically for engineers. Read more below to find out about all the perks of your new membership!

Member Exclusives

Registered members of element14 Community have more options available to them:

Earn points and badges to help you climb the ranks of the Community! Check out our full document explaining points and badges.
Access documents that only members are able to view
Participate in discussion and leave comments
Use the bookmark feature to easily find important items later when you need them
Connect with and follow other engineers to help grow your network
Ask questions and get help from experts
Learn about key electronics concepts with our Essentials learning series
Grow your expertise by attending a webinar
Follow topics that interest you and set up notifications so you'll never miss an update
Participate in a RoadTest, Design Challenge, Project14 theme, or any of our member exclusive contests
Learn about and discuss popular tech like Raspberry Pi, Arduino, BeagleBone, Altium CircuitStudio, Autodesk EAGLE, and more

Where Should I Start?

We recommend filling out your profile and uploading/changing your avatar first so your fellow members can learn more about you and your interests. You can access your profile by clicking on the circle which will become your avatar in the top right and clicking 'Profile'

After you've filled out your profile, we recommend "Following" the areas of the Community (e.g. Raspberry Pi) that interest you most, or even the users who create the content that grabs your attention.

If you visit a group then you should see a banner across the bottom of the page where you can click to join:

You can also add fellow members as contacts on the Community by searching for their username, or clicking their username, visiting their user profile and click the '+Connect' button and click 'follow'. You can also send them a private message once you both accept a 'friendship' request.

Finally, make sure to introduce yourself to the other members by posting here; and take a minute to review the Participation Guidelines so you'll fit right in!

Need Help?

Have a question or problem using the element14 Community? Visit Feedback and Support where you can get help with issues with the element14 Community from members of the element14 Community staff.

On behalf of the element14 Community, welcome! We're glad you're here!

Top Comments

gadget.iom over 10 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

Welcome
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e14 Contributor over 10 years ago

Dear members I am Vikram, mechanical engineer by profession, but an electronics enthusiast. I am here to develop my skills in electronics and share ideas.
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Problemchild over 10 years ago in reply to johnbeetem

Well Volunteered John
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johnbeetem over 10 years ago in reply to spiritualmadman

Michael Druckenmiller wrote:

BTW, what's the best way to get into FPGA work? I would be interested in starting off with self learning and extremely inexpensive tools to build my knowledge base and then be able to use that knowledge at work.

Check out element14's FPGA Group. There are lots of interesting discussions and 'blogs there, though not a lot of tutorial stuff. These two discussions may be useful:

Some FPGA Beginner Questions
Barriers to designing with FPGAs?

The cheapest way I know of to get started with FPGAs in the USA is the Lattice iCEstick, which I've seen as cheap as US$22 plus shipping. It has the unique feature that you can program it with open-source tools (based on Verilog), or you can use the Lattice tools (VHDL or Verilog). iCEstick is currently out of stock at Newark, but other USA vendors have stock or you can order directly from Lattice.

Lattice Semiconductor: ICE40HX1K-STICK-EVN iCEstick Evaluation Kit
Project IceStorm: fully open-source FPGA tools for Lattice iCE40
John Beetem's IceStorm Notes

I don't have a book to recommend for beginning FPGA design, but others have recommended this one:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470185325?keywords=fpga%20prototyping%20by%20verilog%20examples&qid=1445270644

There's also a VHDL version.

Another FPGA board I've used is the US$38 Papilio One from Gadget Factory. It has a much larger FPGA than iCEstick (Xilinx Spartan-3E instead of Lattice iCE40 HX1K) and lots of I/O. Gadget Factory has lots of tutorials, though they tend to be VHDL rather than Verilog: Gadget Factory Learning Site

FPGAs are lots of fun once you've clawed your way up the learning curve. Do feel free to ask questions at theFPGA Group.
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nlarson over 10 years ago in reply to spiritualmadman

Welcome to the Community spiritualmadman! So glad the Community was able to help you out - I think you'll find some super smart people here who are willing to help with most things - there is a spirit of learning here and we hope you embrace it! If you haven't already make sure to check out the Welcome blog - it's a great kick off to learn about all the things you can do with your membership.

Also, we have a FPGA "wizard!" here on the Community - he may be able to offer some ideas on your question - johnbeetem
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