RE: New to FPGAs? Download a Free ebook "FPGAs For Dummies"

johnbeetem — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 20:37:53 GMT

Based on Michael’s review I’m not planning on reading FPGAs for Dummies myself but I’m very glad Altera has published it. It indicates that Altera is serious about wanting beginners to learn about FPGAs and that they recognize that it’s a whole lot harder to understand, use, and program FPGAs than one would think based on the marketing you see from FPGA vendors.

I’ve talked about this before at element14, for example in this discussion: Role for FPGA or CPLD with Raspberry Pi. Recognizing that there is an FPGA learning curve problem is the first step towards solving it. I’m hoping that one or more FPGA vendors will soon realize that the easiest and cheapest way to solve it is by documenting their bitstreams so the FLOSS world can do its magic (see the first page of Taming the Wild Bitstream for more).

RE: New to FPGAs? Download a Free ebook "FPGAs For Dummies"

michaelkellett — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 12:24:27 GMT

Just downloaded and skimmed this. Don't expect to learn anything about how to use FPGAs or even work out if you might need to.

Staggeringly lightweight !

Only consider if you know nothing about FPGAs - and don't mind knowing very little more after you've read it.