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

johnbeetem

As some of you may have noticed, I've been obsessed for many decades with having open FPGA bitstream documentation so that people can write their own FPGA designs tools, especially FLOSS (Free-as-in-Liberty Open Source Software).

 

I recently found out about IceStorm, a project that has somehow reverse-engineered and documented the Lattice iCE40 FPGA.  They've actually put together a fully-open-source tool chain with Yosys for Verilog synthesis and Arachne_pnr for placement and routing.  I don't know how usable or robust the tools are.  I'm planning on taking a close look starting next month.

 

If you're interested, here's the IceStorm link, which has links to the other tools: Project IceStorm

Discussion of Yosys and the tools is at reddit: Yosys Open SYnthesis Suite

 

Update: Here are a couple of nice Hackaday items about IceStorm:

 

From 29 March 2015: Reverse Engineering Lattice’s iCE40 FPGA Bitstream | Hackaday

From 29 May 2015: An Open Source Toolchain For iCE40 FPGAs | Hackaday

 

Update 2: Here are some good IceStorm installation instructions: Projet IceStorm : le FPGA libéré ! | Front de Libération des FPGA.  They're in a combination of French and GNU/Linux.

 

Here's the Lattice IceStick directly supported by IceStorm: Lattice Semiconductor: ICE40HX1K-STICK-EVN iCEstick Evaluation Kit.  It's US$20.89 in the USA.

  • John,

     

    Here's Dave Vandenbout from Xess using the tools on a Raspberry Pi, I believe:

     

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    Jan Cumps wrote:

     

    Here's Dave Vandenbout from Xess using the tools on a Raspberry Pi, I believe...

    The IceStorm tools should run well on a RasPi 2 or 3.  They work very well on an ODROID-C1.

     

    Vendor FPGA tools require a fast x86 PC.  Most run on GNU/Linux, so that's some progress.

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    Just FYI:

     

    14 months on - now icestorm supports ice40(hx/lp)[1,4,8]k, in all packages, including the PLL's and embedded block srams.

    There's a timing analysis tool too, and one for replacing sram images within bitfiles without recompiling.

     

    All the tool install, compile and run happily on ARM SBC's in 32 and 64 bit flavours, and even in Mac OS X - AFAIK the only FPGA toolchain to work natively within those.

    (although you will want at least 512MiB ram to run the toolchain on 8k designs without dipping into swap).

     

    Given that the tools will run on a $5 RasPi Zero, and a fair few of the new development boards coming out support the RasPi's 40 pin connector, this makes it possible to have a low cost, embedded, and very high performance (due to the fpga logic) control system which can inexpensively be deployed whilst actually including all it's own documentation and locally hosted development tools.

     

    And that's an entirely new capability - and certainly a gain!

  • Is there any full-featured student board for the ICE40 8k?

     

    I mean something with:

    • leds and buttons
    • 7 segment displays
    • VGA output
    • audio DAC and ADC
    • some external SRAM
    • maybe an alphanumeric LCD or an OLED
    • maybe HDMI output
    • tons of headers
    • the requisite USB and flash memory stuff
    • last but not least, a decent clock like 100 MHz, not the 12 MHz rubbish of the HX8K breakout board!

     

    With the advent and continued progress of project IceStorm, I'm sure a board like this would have an audience, even if it costs a lot (still, it had better not cost twice as much as an equivalent Altera or Xilinx board with the same I/O!)

     

    I can get the HX8K breakout board and connect some of that stuff myself (the leds, buttons, probably the LCD and VGA) but I'm not sure I can connect an external SRAM or a HDMI port without frying anything (not that the 12 MHz clock would allow be to do much of anything with the latter.)

  • in reply to tobia

    You are not limited much by the 12MHz clock, the chip has PLLs so you can make faster clocks internally - but you would find getting timing closure hard on an HX40 at 100MHz.

    The ICE40 8k architecture is very limited - the lack of multipliers makes any audio signal processing very expensive in terms of gates used.

    Once you use fast clocks and add external memory and video interfaces the ultra low power advantage of the ICE40s isn't very relevant - you would find development much easier with a more powerful FPGA but you would need to use 'free' tools rather than open source.

    I have used ICE40s in several completed and current commercial projects and they are great in their niche. The IceStorm project doesn't support VHDL so I haven't looked at it further.

     

    MK