What's Stopping You Building Your Next Project with an FPGA? (Please, Don't Blame the Cost!)

Ooh! Very ARTY indeed.

It's a great opportunity for someone to show all to put VHDL, Verilog, C and schematic capture to the test.

Why not someone attempt something strange?  Make a Floppy Disk Controller with it.

It'd be a great demonstration of how to make a reliable Data Separator from a serial bitstream.

mcb1  wrote:

 

While I can see they have great potential and are much more suited for some things, IMO they are one piece of hardware for a purpose ...like a regulator is to power.

Whilst I agree FPGA's aren't for every project, they are certainly a lot more general purpose than a power regulator as you are free to configure them to do whatever you choose. They come in many different variants with low or high gate count, low power consumption or high performance, or anywhere in between, varying embedded peripheral cores, even analog cores. If you look at the Microsemi range, they have the Fusion devices which are mixed signal FPGA's which include ADC's with wide input range analog inputs, gate driver outputs, etc., and the SmartFusion devices which have embedded ARM cores, PCIe lanes, DDR controllers. The range of capabilities in the FPGA offerings across the various manufacturers is quite amazing.

So with all the options available you CAN use FPGA's in almost any design, but whether you should is another matter. They will add some complexity to the design process and powering and clocking them add's additional regulators and clocking/reset requirements to your board. They do offer a lot of flexibility though, and if you have areas of a design which you are unsure of until you get something on a bench and are able to test in in a real working scenario, then they also offer a get out of jail free card as you can reconfigure them to cater for things you discover during testing which might otherwise have required a board re-spin. You could also simplify some parts of a board if you bring lots into an FPGA rather than having discrete components and it might mean you can get you board design done quicker and be getting on with your FPGA design while your PCB is out being built.

Best Regards,

Rachael

Thats Simple

I have no idea where to start lol. And I have never used one before so a very steep learning curve.

I know, if i carved out a few days I would be able to figure it out

Greetings!

Normally I'd be quicker to chime in on a question like this, but very busy yesterday working on FPGA tools

I've written lots on this topic, so I'll link to earlier discussions.

Barriers to designing with FPGAs?

Some FPGA Beginner Questions

Not-as-expensive FPGA Boards

You will find that the barriers to designing FPGAs are still pretty much the same:

1. Very steep learning curve for new users.  You have to commit to a lot of work to get that first LED blinking.

2. "Logic!  Why don't they teach Logic in these schools?" is as true today as in 1950 when C.S. Lewis published these words.  Schools teach "coding" (and sometimes "programming"), but not logic.  The serial thinking needed for most programming languages and the parallel thinking for digital design are different animals IMO.

3. My personal soapbox: Microcomputers have open instruction sets, so anyone can develop languages and compilers for them.  This has made them ubiquitous and cheap.  Except for a few recent exceptions, FPGAs have closed bitstreams which means you are stuck with the tools and languages provided by vendors, which IMO has severely limited the use of FPGAs.  If Intel had insisted that everyone program in PL/M using an Intel-provided compiler, microprocessors would be in the same boat.  JMO/YMMV

hlipka  wrote:

 

The Xilinx XC9572XL is the go-to device for the hobbyist. Powerful enough to solve real problems (for which conventional logic gets too large) and fast enough at the same time (faster than most MCUs). It can handle 5V on its inputs, so its compatible to many peripherals. Its quite cheap and there are many breakout boards available. Xilinx ISE is free, and programmers are cheap.

I used lots of XC9572XL CPLDs and the smaller XC9536XL in designs around the turn of the century.  It was a great part, and one of the last still available in a hobbyist-friendly 44-pin PLCC.  I even used wire-wrap sockets for one project

Nowadays I'd go with Lattice iCE40.  They're small, cheap FPGAs with open-source design tools available.  Not instant-on like the XC9572XL, but pretty fast load time since they're so small.  Small parts program in less than 15 msec according my quick scan of the data sheet.  You can load then from an external serial flash or use the one-time-programmable internal memory for production.

John,

I tried the Lattice tools for ICE40 devices. but I just could not get the tools to work as well as the Xilinx tools.  I liked the parts but hated the tools.  Have you had any success with them?

Gene

genebren  wrote:

 

I tried the Lattice tools for ICE40 devices. but I just could not get the tools to work as well as the Xilinx tools.  I liked the parts but hated the tools.  Have you had any success with them?

I've never used the Lattice tools for iCE40.  I've only used the open-source IceStorm tools on Ubuntu or Lubuntu GNU/Linux.

Project IceStorm: fully open-source FPGA tools for Lattice iCE40

John Beetem's IceStorm Notes

John Beetem's Arachne-pnr Notes

I haven't used IceStorm's Verilog synthesizer Yosys much.  I mostly use my XXICC (21st Century Co-design) release 0.0r , which generates iCE40 BLIF files for arachne-pnr, IceStorm's place-and-route tool.

This 21st century yabber about teaching coding at schools thinking that it's new stuff.....

I learned set theory as a 6 year old at primary school in the 1970's and later about DeMorgan's theorem and Karnaugh maps.

We didn't have computers so we used simple items such as cane hoops, wooden blocks and punch cards.

Then I started building stuff with 4000 series logic.

Those were the days.

OpenTechLabs has a nive two-part intro video, also showing installation of the open-source toolchain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bIeiMmqaZE