If you are not happy with the use of these cookies, please review our Cookie Policy to learn how they can be disabled. However, this course is designed around Quartus. FPGA has details way beyond this article and courses like Introduction to FPGA Design for Embedded Systems on Coursera can give thoughts on these details like how to design logic with timing constraints and how to avoid any violations or how to optimize the design in terms of resources and power. Your contributions to the discussion have been fabulous and the thread has been viewed almost 3000 times already.The mission of the Shark Lab is to study the physiological and behavioral ecology of marine animals, emphasizing the effect of human activity on the ocean. Verilog Modules A Verilog module is a design unit similar to a black-box, with a specific purpose as engineered by the RTL designer.A few months ago, this community tackled the first FPGA FAQ titled When (and why) is it a good idea to use an FPGA in your embedded system design?. And you need to learn how to visualize many things happening at the same time in contrast to many things happening at different times, one thing at a time, in a procedural language.
I personally feel Xilinx has more user base and very affordable for. Major player are Xilinx and Altera. To get the best out of this tutorial series, I strongly recommend to download the tools listed at the end of this document and try doing every step as you read along.1. It might only be a coincidence but within only a few days, I have been approached by several companies looking for help in their search for FPGA talents ( here, here and here for example).Let us give it a try and see how fast and easily we can learn a little bit about FPGAs and create a simple working test project with this easy FPGA tutorial.
Your personal experience learning FPGA, things you would do different if you could start over, maybe books and/or online resources that were particularly useful to you? What to expect in terms of difficulty level how steep is the learning curve? Start simple likeSo this new FAQ thread will be about getting some ideas and advice from you guys who've "been there done that" on how to proceed to demystify FPGAs and eventually add the skill to one's resume.
Learn Fpga Software And ICE40
As in most things, there is a wide variety of tools depending on the FPGA you choose, and the power of the tools, and the complexity of the tools varies directly as the power of the tools.I recently came up to speed on Lattice's IceCube2 software and ICE40 parts. There's learning the tool flow that's needed to go from design input (Verilog or VHDL, most likely) to a bitstream downloaded to the FPGA in question. That experience helped me with part of the learning curve.As far as the learning curve, there are a couple of superimposed learning curves to deal with. I worked for years designing (but not doing the code for!) DSP systems implemented in FPGAs.
Learn Fpga Free Version Of
There are open-source Verilog compilers and simulators, and most vendors have a free version of some of their tools. Going from these tools to the iceCube2 tools was fairly easy in comparison to learning them in the first place.As far as where to start, I think it is extremely valuable to learn to program in either Verilog or VHDL with a toolset and a simulator before even getting a piece of hardware to program. You can get things done by learning parts of the Vivado tools, but there is a lot more there that can help build designs more quickly and easily, but it's not easy to master it. These are much more complicated and they have a very steep and tall learning curve. But, that said, before this I worked extensively with Xilinx's older ISE tools, and the newer Vivado tools.
In fact, the way to think about and structure your code is to break it down (as a good programmer would for normal software) into small pieces, each executing in its own always() block. I have seen Verilog that was written by a software person, and it is obvious that the person was thinking in terms of a sequence of instructions. In conrast, the FPGA can do infinitely many things at the same time. A for() loop or while() loop with all the steps needed inside it. Software people generally (I am one!) think in terms of sequential execution, i.e.
I don't have any experience with Intel/Altera, but they make good stuff as well.For me, the hardest part was getting the opportunity to embed an FPGA into a design and then make it work. Most of these also have project suggestions for learning, like an artix-7 board, or a Spartan board, or one of the Lattice boards. Readler that does a very good job of introducing the reader to these concepts.As far as a project to get started, once the basics are mastered, it would make sense to buy a development board with some peripherals on it, like switches, LEDs, etc. I have a very good (and small!) book, "Verilog By Example A Concise Introduction For FPGA design" by Blaine C.
How do you synchronize across clock domains?My personal experience and development tools:At the advice of an experienced colleague, I started with VHDL.While more verbose and persnickety than Verilog, VHDL's strong typing keeps a beginner fromMaking some mistakes that will compile happily and not do what you mean in Verilog.Which you use will in real work will depend on your location and industry.My colleague recommended starting with the "Blue Book":Also, though perhaps not as good or thorough, I also read:VHDL Starter's Guide by Sudhaker and Ylalamanchili, andI was already experienced with digital logic and asynchronous design for hardware and softwareSo this part wasn't so hard for me, but it took me a while to understand how to synchronize across clock domains in VHDL.My first project was an LCD controller (character synthesis merged with graphics into a local SRAM,Repeatedly clocked out to refresh the LCD, clock domains include the refresh cycle and CPU updates).I had already written the specifications but failed to hire someone to design it, and was goaded into doing it myself.I used the Xilinx Webbench tools which included a nice simulator.I was able to pretty quickly code then simulate and test the design No hardware until I had a good idea what I was doing.Next I built a hardware lash-up proof-of-concept using an evaluation board and a forest of ribbon cables.Logged work time from cracking the books until working lash-up was 2 weeks.Here's a photo of the lash-up (CPU board lower right, FPGA eval board lower left, other boards only providing power/bias to LCD):Unfortunately, after laying out the board for this thing,It took 3 weeks to work through the tool bugs includingWildly hot FPGA (Xilinx synthesizer bug causing shoot-through in output ports), andFPGA prom programmer writing incorrect data into the FPGA configuration flash -Both really painful to find and get fixed by respective miscreant vendors.Then another few days to optimize down to fit within a 15k gate FPGA.I'm not sure an LCD controller is a good first project -)Regardless what you start with, several vendors provide free tools for compilation and simulation.Code and simulate a complete set of stimulus/response using the simulator.Only then proceed to an eval board to prove it really works. What's the difference between clocked and asynchronous logic? Regardless, don't start trying to understand FPGAs until you have some understanding of digital design, and really understand why the following issues are important and techniques for addressing them: If you are used to thinking about asynchronous events and have some hardware design experience already, you're way ahead, but if not this will be tough. The learning curve is hugely dependent on past experience and training. ( an interfce to a fast sampling ADC with very precise timing, coupled to a microcontroller)Hi Stephane - I'll try any address your questions in order.
Good engineering comes from conflict - and I specifically mean conflict about concepts and design methods - ideas. But - it takes strong management and bitter-experienced old farts to really enforce that concept.Also - design should be a team effort whenever possible. If you spend 80% on design, the rest flows from it. In my experience (and I am reformed because of my own pain) design is the most critical part of a project. Tools are a means to an end - at all levels.Your point about design is spot-on.
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