Is there an FPGA that you don't need a computer engineering degree just to get a light to blink?

If you want the challenge of a low level design based on registers and an ALU, you could do a lot worse than to base your design on a simple early device like the AMD AM2900 bit-slice. It has a straightforward microprogramming structure that would be easy to emulate in an FPGA. Take a look at this:

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/amd/ED2900A_vol1_Jan85.pdf

Also I know that the Intel 8051 has a simple structure for a microcontroller and has been implemented in FPGAs. You can buy it as a core for example:

8051 IP Core » Oregano Systems

David shorey wrote:

 

It is The "They are quite simple to use, but a bit of a pain to install." I have an issue and where I call out both Altera and Xilinx for not supporting the community because It is left to the community to make videos like :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF9vlO-ah-A

When I said "They are quite simple to use, but a bit of a pain to install" I was referring to the IceStorm tools (yosys, arachne-pnr, iceprog).  They're all command line tools, so you don't have to grok a big complex IDE that's "like flying a jet airliner with 100,000 switches".  The Xilinx suite is a pain to install and complex to use.  I haven't used Altera this century and I haven't used Lattice's tools, but I read user reports that both are PITAs.  I have used MicroSemi (previously Actel) and find it worse that Xilinx.

I haven't used Altera since the 20th Century, but it actually went pretty well.  Altera had their own HDL called AHDL which was a lot easier to grok than VHDL or Verilog because AHDL was closer to the hardware.  That is, it was a hardware description language rather than a behavior description language, and designed specifically for synthesis rather than for simulation.

Regarding LEDs and switches and pins: do look at the schematics and other documentation for your FPGA development boards.  Make sure you can tell whether switches and LEDs are active-high or active-low.  When I started in this business it was all variants of TTL so all switches and LEDs were active-low.  Modern CMOS outputs usually have the same drive for pull-up and pull-down, so the board may be either.

You board may or may not have external pull-up or pull-down resistors for switches.  If it doesn't, you probably need to enable internal FPGA pull-up or pull-down circuits.  Be sure your FPGA inputs don't have pull-up/down circuits that conflict with external pull-up/down resistors.

     The underpinnings of computer architecture are simple looking at the pieces. But putting them together takes much intuitiveness and diagnostic skills beyond a step by step diagram. Blinking an LED is not so simple if you look at the electrical properties.

• What is the correct voltage/amperage?
• Do I build a processor with gates (general) that I program to blink the light?
• Do I build an analog switch controlled by some external stimuli?
• Do I use a PWM type circuit to act as a dimmer and program a computer to oscillate  back and forth?

I just touched on a few ideas and I am sure there are more. As it has been said the devil is in the details. For a true understanding here a good engineering background would be useful. I think you really meant does it take rocket science to load code into a FPGA? Definitely no, but it sure does not hurt.

Clem

John Beetem wrote:

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The Xilinx suite is a pain to install and complex to use.

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Different opinion warning

They installed smooth for me (I'm using ISE because I have a Spartan 6). And the IDE isn't that complex I think. At least, I don't have too much trouble doing work with it.

Jan Cumps wrote:

They installed smooth for me (I'm using ISE because I have a Spartan 6). And the IDE isn't that complex I think. At least, I don't have too much trouble doing work with it.

Glad to hear it went well for you.  Did you have previous experience with FPGA design and FPGA tools?  I've read lots of comments over the years from new FPGA users who are terribly frustrated.  A big problem with FPGAs is that there are dozens of small details you have to get right and if you don't the FPGA doesn't load and you have no idea which of the details are right or wrong, and in some case don't know that a crucial detail even exists (like the Xilinx start-up clock).

Advice to new users:  IMO your best bet is to follow a detailed tutorial for your FPGA board step by step.  Always start with a ludicrously simple example like controlling an LED with a push button.

John Beetem wrote:

 

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Glad to hear it went well for you.  Did you have previous experience with FPGA design and FPGA tools?  I've read lots of comments over the years from new FPGA users who are terribly frustrated.  A big problem with FPGAs is that there are dozens of small details you have to get right and if you don't the FPGA doesn't load and you have no idea which of the details are right or wrong, and in some case don't know that a crucial detail even exists (like the Xilinx start-up clock).

 

...

 

It was (and is) my first experience. Because it was all so new, I kept with the guide of hamster_nz until I got the concept of FPGAs and VHDL.

If you follow that, you get the concepts of writing and synthetising a design. He also teaches you how to create the simulation part, and how to execute and interprete it. How to interprete the timing reports and how to set timing constraints.

The tutorial got me up to a level good enough to look around for examples, understand them and integrate them in a design.

I'm still a bit weak to write a more-than-basic design myself, but I'm working on that.

John Beetem wrote:

 

...

 

Advice to new users:  IMO your best bet is to follow a detailed tutorial for your FPGA board step by step.  Always start with a ludicrously simple example like controlling an LED with a push button.

 

...

 

Yes! My first lesson was a LED. Then a button, Then doing AND/OR/... logic with multiple buttons,

Then a running light with multiple LEDs and a clock, etc...

I've filmed my first endeavours - warning: I had no knowledge at all when filming this, so it's really from a starters point of view.

Only the last video is an own design (with most code blatantly stolen from the web anyway )

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