By July 11, 2013 6:00 am UTC.2Like most engineers, I was first introduced to FPGAs in college. By that time I was already experienced with programming, logic and circuit design, but even with those subjects under my belt, I found FPGAs wildly confusing. For a long time after taking that FPGA course, I was convinced that I could have developed a better course than my professor, and blamed most of my initial confusion on that. I felt that way right up until I tried to do exactly what my professor did: teach FPGAs.On the surface, it seems like someone with lots of microcontroller experience would have no problem migrating to the world of programmable logic, but that is simply not the case. Even the most experienced programmer and developer will have problems understanding the concept behind things like '.' Just the concept of a circuit being 'written' in a language like VHDL rather than built is enough to confuse the average DIYer.As an engineer at SparkFun, it is my job to provide the 'shortcuts' that a hobbyist or student might need to accomplish their goals in the electronic realm. So awhile ago, I set about trying to write a tutorial that would provide the base information and tools needed to get someone started using FPGAs.
After ten pages of writing, I realized that teaching the concepts needed to understand and use an FPGA is a much bigger problem than I anticipated. In fact, it's such a large and complex problem that, after a couple of years, I still haven't found a complete way to introduce the uninitiated to the world of FPGAs.Looking for FPGA hardware? Luckily the DIY world has lots of very talented people working on the very same problem.
3 Xilinx ISE WebPack Free License 3. Select either Split Installer Base Image, the first part of the split installer (multiple file download), or Full Installer for Windows (single file installer). Split Installer Use this option if you cannot reliably download the larger install files. Make sure you. Dec 06, 2018 Xilinx Vivado Design Suite 2018.1 Free Download Latest Version and Single Link for Windows. It is Also offline Setup and standalone installer and Compressed Version Of Xilinx Vivado Design Suite 2018.1 Free Download.
In particular, Jack Gassett, the creator of the Papilio, and Justin Rajewski, creator of the Mojo have done the some great work creating boards and material to ease the transition into the world of FPGAs. These companies have a great deal of supporting information and tutorials that make them a perfect choice if one has a bit of electronics experience and wants to start working with FPGAs. The Papilio has tutorials at the site, and the Mojo has tutorials at the site.Now, I don't want you to think that this post is meant to be an advertisement for these two boards. They're great devices, but this post is meant to shine light on a massive gap in the open source community. To this day FPGAs are still very, very, difficult to learn and teach.
There are people who want to learn logic and FPGAs that are turned off of the subject because the barrier to entry is still so high. It's the open source community's responsibility to lower that barrier to entry, but so far, it's still high enough to scare away even seasoned electronics enthusiasts.So what's to be done? Personally, I don't really have a good answer. People like Jack Gassett and Justin Rajewski have bravely taken up the cause of bringing FPGAs to the masses, but there is still much to be done. It will still be a while (or never) until FPGAs are as friendly as, say, the Arduino, but with enough talented geeks attacking the problem, we can at least make programmable logic less scary.So what do you think the next step is? What would make FPGAs easier to learn and use?
If you're already a developer, what made your learning experience easier? Working in the FPGA industry for 2 years, I always learn something new every day.To really learn FPGAs well, you really gotta start with the very basics. Logic blocks/designs, and then translate those basic blocks into HDL (Hardware Descriptive Language) code.From here, it's not really about learning the FPGA itself, but more on the software that you need to use the program the chip. As people in the IRC channel know, I am more than willing to demo HDL and the FPGA design process using my Justin.tv account. People that watch do learn things, and I try to make it as interactive as possible. I'm there to teach people, not do marketing demos.I personally think that Sparkfun should do something like the SIK, and do the SFIK (Sparkfun FPGA Inventor's Kit). Where you start off with the logic block boards, then go to a Papilio/Papilio Pro/Mojo v3 board.
I'm a bit biased being an FPGA designer myself, but I think getting FPGAs out there would be awesome. They are incredibly powerful pieces of hardware. Think of them as having the potential to be 100,000+ core processors which happen to run Finite State Machines rather than Machine Code.From my experience I think there are 4 major barriers to FPGAs:1) State Machines. I know a lot of us know what they are, but for someone coming into digital through Arduinos they are a key piece that gets missed. I think a basic course in digital focusing on discrete logic would help.
Ultimately that is all an FPGA is really. I would suggest a class/tutorial that goes through State Machines and how to build logic with discrete chips would help. That is how I learned, and I constantly find myself doing mental comparisons of what is happening in code to what we did with discrete logic. Maybe Pete could give us a video on FSMs.2) Parallelized Hardware Coding.
FPGAs are a totally different beast when it comes to programming. I learned the basics in my Digital Logic class using the Altera schematic editor. This lets you drag and drop in basic logic blocks and wire them together. Once you understand how to build a circuit with FSMs like in number 1, then FPGA design with a schematic editor tool fairly easy to grasp. Then once you get the hang of wiring together blocks, you can start converting some or all of it to code, and see exactly how the circuit becomes code (at least I seem to remember being able to do that.). I think something that may help break the programming barrier would be something like an open source library of little code blocks (like the massive amount of example code that is available for Arduino). This would let people grab say a UART or a SPI interface, and drop it into their design saving them the expertise needed to do more complex tasks.
Learning to wire together code blocks, and begin to modify them to do what you want is a great way to ease into the FPGA world. That is basically how I went from absolute noob to an FPGA designer, was working with predeveloped code and breaking it down and piecing it together.3) SMD only. I know a lot of people are getting into SMD soldering, but FPGAs tend to be relatively fine pitch, and have a ton of pins. This is kind of a turn off, especially if you want to try prototyping.
I think one solution is something similar to your old Spartan 3E dev board. A basic FPGA that can easily be integrated with a breadboard design. Be sure to have a good interface to the PC though. FPGAs don't tend to come with USB drivers, so maybe an open source JTAG adapter or something would really help.4) Tools. I agree tools aren't readily available, but I really don't think anything can be done to fix that. To build an FPGA image you are going to need the proprietary software from the manufacturer to map your logic into their device. Perhaps the best thing here is to pick an FPGA which has freely available tools (I use Xilinx ISE for example) and work up a tutorial video that shows people how to do the basics, without worrying about details they don't need to know.
For the more computer savy out there, don't forget that most all of the tools can also be run at the command line with scripts. That can make things a lot less painful. Maybe provide a simple Makefile that will make compiling an FPGA as easy as typing 'make'.
Finally, for beginners maybe a simple development GUI to work with the code blocks I mentioned above could be written. Something basic that would let you drag and drop circuit blocks and then export the code, or simply call the real tools from the command line in the background would make things a lot easier.Just my 2 cents, not sure if they are worth that much or not. State Machines are really popular, but you can't rule out the pipeline designs!.
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Schematic design after learning FSM can be difficult. Because you need to have your states generated in the schematic editor. For those 'blocks', OpenCores has them. The problem with OpenCores is the lack of documentation, and how to use them properly. Xilinx has the IP Integrator in Vivado (can't use with the Mojo or Papilio), but it allows you to do this.
The older generation of FPGAs are all SMD, but when you get to the newer/bigger chips, they are all BGA. FPGAs have a lot of IO pins. I agree the proprietary tools ar ethe better way to go.
I know Xilinx has 'Quick Take' Videos which show you how to use Vivado (not sure on the ISE side). In reality, drawing up a schematic and block diagrams by hand and not in a computer will be just as effective as SketchUp.All valid points. I studied Operations Research and some CS and my first few years in industry were as a programmer. I got interested in electronics as a hobby about 2 years ago and developed some decent microcontroller skills, largely thanks to SparkFun.
A few months back, I decided that I wanted to see what all the FPGA buzz was about and I was lucky enough to get in on the ground floor with the Mojo as a kickstarter supporter.I won't say that it was easy - the shift in thinking from writing traditional code to designing ciruits in Verilog was headache-inducing at first, but the tutorials and example code on the EmbeddedMicro site really helped to illuminate things for me. My first project was a simple scrolling display on an 8x8 LED matrix.
I'm not sure whether I did it 'right', but it works. The 50 Mhz clock speed of the Mojo leaves plenty of cycles for PWM, scanning rows, and scrolling the text very smoothly and evenly. I implemented a simple RAM block to hold the characters and a second block to hold the message. My next step is to wire up a serial connection via the on-board microcontroller to display any message input on the serial port.The Mojo takes a lot of the annoying logistics out of the way so that you can jump right in and start using the FPGA. The tutorials walk you through getting the free ISE WebPack design software from Xilinx, and EmbeddedMicro provides a Loader program that uploads your finished.bin file to the microcontroller which 'programs' the FPGA, all seamlessly. I had Hello World (i.e. An LED tied to a button) up and running within minutes of getting the software stack installed.
I highly recommend the Mojo as a first step toward understanding and using FPGAs. If you want to learn how to design using FPGAs you could always have a crack at my informal FPGA course - The learning curve is still quite steep - 'Programming without loops? , however it is a lot less steep than doing it alone.You have to remember you are trying to make something useful out of half a million logic gates, and have it all work at tens or hundreds of megahertz. That would take the resources of a large company in the 80's or 90's.You can also find some of my tinkering at http://hamsterworks.co.nz/mediawiki/index.php/FPGAProjects.
Hi guys,I am new to FPGA's and all I want to do is put a C code onto one. Can someone help me out with this?I wrote a C program using pure C, there is no external libraries used or any other embedded code like assembly in it.
I understand there are programs out there that can convert C code to be put on an FPGA. I'm not sure how to do this, or if I can simply copy & paste the C code into a new project on some IDE then put that on the FPGA (synthesize)? All my code does is run a calculation then compare it to a string. There are no peripherals or other hardware used. I'm hoping to achieve my goal without having to learn very deeply HDL/Verilog languages.I have been looking at a XiLinx Spartan 6 board, which I believe would work for my project. I have almost no college experience, know very little about how to use an FPGA, BUT I feel they're super easy to understand. You just have to learn binary, then learn how shift registers & memoryworks, as well as the physics of it so you can imagine the electrons moving around like you'd imagine parts in a machine.
Then you learn about logic gates, I took a digital logic class and aced it because i looked it all up already, did learn you can't leave any pins floating though. And then from there, you watch a video on youtube calles 'how computers add numbers, in 10 easysteps' or something like that, repeat until it's understood how logic gates can perform mathmatical operations. I imagine knowing how a processor works might be helpful, pick one you might want to be an expert on and read the manual over and over until eachlittle part you manage to understand link together, they don't write those manuals for noobs so it'll take a while to understand. Then, just realize an fpga doesn't use a clock unless you add one, it's basically logic gates, and you should know from learning about logic gates how each gate can be translated into a mathmatical operator.I imagine programming an fpga is all about the syntax of connecting pins to formulas, and the compiler takes care of routing all logic blocks. Something like that. I see look up tables on fpga specs (designing a circuit that uses an fpga) and i imagine those allow saving resources by simplifying complex calculations that have few possibilities, in order to increase resource efficiency. Justmy guess.
Zero college, I read textbooks on electricity and it confuses me, i haven't even taken precalculus and they expect me to know derivatines, differentiation, integration, symbols i don't even know how to look up, confusing stuff. My brother is taking a basic electricity class, while I'm designing a switched mode power supply. Iask him what they're teaching him because I'm curious about what I'd learn if I went to college. Dependant/independant voltage/current sources, nodal/grid analysis, I can't even understand the descriptions of this stuff really, college overly complicates things and pushes useless info. They have it worded in ways robots might understand well (correct & strictly worded syntax), but not people.
I personally love fpgas despite not knowing how to use them, I think they're superior to processors in most applications. Our brains surpass computers, and work using neurons, which is like a cluster of logic blocks and connections. Kinda want to build an fpga based computer, it'd make game/os emulators so much better if you can just switch archiatecture like that. Behavioral or Structural?VHDL is my favorite, structural way is for hardware oriented people while behavioral is for software inclined.I had once an encounter with FPGA's, while i was designing a crypto block in vhdl. I preferred the structural way as it was closer to how components are physically interconnected in hardware. Hardware equivalent of an ' conditional if statement' is the multiplexer. It is possible even to transform C/C/C#/Vb like languages to pure VHDL, just by reading line by line c like code and jumping along goto line.
OK - good news - I know this is a bit of an old blog, however I visited Xilinx in Ireland this week (March 2015) and they have developed a more used-friendly c-like interface which is designed to directly address the difficulty in using FPGAs - plus the lack of Verilog-trained engineers today.Vivado HLS (uses C/C) (uses OpenCL) worth a look - should allow us more menial 'c folk' to understand & use FPGAs. As a new learner with a variety of programming background and a specialty of none:).I think by just reading over the comments here I feel more confused than I think I should be. So if I'm right how others in the learning curve might feel I'd start with a super basic overview understanding that relates FPGAs to hobby electronic devices that are more commonly known.Perhaps a learning model approach, like.1) An FPGA; by all means, is an electronic breadboard and/or Generic PCB with selectable digital components; all inside a single chip.2) Just as one wouldn't give a breadboard a list of instructions (like PC-programming) FPGA's don't take a sequential list of instructions. Instead they take a list of wiring connections (IE.
A) FPGA chips are like an ASIC(Application specific IC) manufacturing plant at your finger-tips. It is very true to say that digital electronic circuit (or IC) designers use FPGA's heavily during ASIC design and the decision to release that circuit design implemented on an FPGA or ASIC; is for the most-part entirely cost comparison driven.3) The concept of programming (Really better named 'circuit designing') with an FPGA is often confused because EDA(Electronic design automation) tools use a PC-Programming like method to 'Automatically-Create' the circuit (IE. The wiring connections and digital components) for you via abstraction methods; Verilog/VHDL; instead of having you pick and wire them together discretely.a) And as a reflection of this model; Verilog/VHDL has different 'levels' of abstraction one can circuit design at.
Be it 'Structural' for just stating which components to use and wire them together or 'Behavioral' where one describes the intended circuits functionality and letting the EDA-Synthesis tool derive/determine how to wire together the circuit to produce the behavior you've described. I gave a power point presentation last night to our robotics club about FPGAs. My big point was that it is not CPU vs FPGA, it is CPU + FPGA. I have been around the industry for a lot of years at www.srccomputers.com, I have worked with both Xilinx and Altera products. At the moment, my preference is Altera tools and verilog language. I have eval boards for both zynq7000 and Cyclone V ST right now and I love the SoC concept(these are similar offerings from both companies with ARM core plus programmable logic).
I am laying out a PCB for hobby UAV that uses the Cyclone V ST. My tact is to show what the chip can do and what the cost is while developing ways to bring new people on board.
After giving some examples of what is possible with these new SoC devices, the last bullet says 'These are more complex to work with, but I can teach you.' And now we come full circle to the article, there are a lot of concepts to learn for FPGA design. However, if a nice website builds on the curriculum then the core does not have to be completely hashed out with every new person. In addition, free FPGA classes can help with hands on learning.
I designed a 1Ghz logic analyzer with little more than an Altera FPGA and a serial port. Try that with your latest processor of the day, I don't care if you can program in CUDA and all that-FPGAs and processors are simply different tools for different jobs.I designed an FPGA interface for the Raspberry Pi that uses direct writing of RPi GPIOs to achieve about a 16Megabyte/sec transfer time in C (don't use the BCM2835 library functions, that will limit you to around 2.5 Mbytes or less). This overcomes some of the limitations of the RPi by putting in a precisely timed thread scheduler, touch panel HW, 64 high current IOs, and an LVDS LCD panel interface in the FPGA. I'm working on an FPGA design that will take HDMI signals (10 samples per clock) to LVDS video (7 samples per clock) so that the RPi video can be displayed on the panel. None of these are practical things for a processor to do. It's a giant circuit sandbox, and the tools are getting better for makers. I'll brag a little and tell you I've been doing this since 1978, when I designed what could arguably be called the world's first FPGA in college (I still have all the project data, and I got an A+!) using rectangles to draw out transistors.
Somebody said FPGAs are going away, I laughed, they are just now coming into their own. Texas Instruments was the company that paved the way-they were the true innovators. Signetics, Intel, AMD, Motorola all were nascent in the new IC business as well. Xilinx and Altera came along quite a bit later-it took a really long time for the configurable logic concept to be really workable.I remember being so excited about the IC stuff anyone could buy for the first time-I was the only one in my high school of 3000 students doing anything in the IC electronics building area! When I was in college, IC logic was available in increasing complexity, but the notion of configurable logic didn't really exist as far as I knew-somehow I came up with the idea of reconfigurable logic (and hence my college IC project). At the time, I'm sure others had ideas about configurable logic as well-but it took a very long time for the notion to become remotely as good in practice (as fast, as cheap, as reliable) as wiring up existing ICs. I made an array of interconnected nand gates that were selectivly enabled by a small array of nand latches.
Depending on how you wrote the nand latches, you could alter the input to output function of the IC. Pretty simple, but those were amazing times where you really could come up with ideas never been done before.I knew several people that went on to be very successful in the tech business, but I had (and still don't) no interest in money-making or business-I've just always loved making things, so I maybe had opportunities but never took them. I've had a long and mostly comfortable career in logic and ASIC design, and that was good enough for me.Getting back to the subject, FPGAs are the ultimate playground for somebody like me-processors can't touch the flexibility of what can be done here.
How to Download Windows 10 and Install it Without a KeyRELATED:First, you’ll need to. You can download it directly from Microsoft, and you don’t even need a product key to download a copy.There’s a that runs on Windows systems, which will help you create a USB drive to install Windows 10. If you aren’t on Windows, you can visit the to download an ISO directly (say, if you’re installing Windows 10 in Boot Camp on a Mac). If you visit that page on a Windows machine, it’ll redirect you to the download tool page instead.Just begin the installation process and install Windows 10 like you normally would. One of the first screens you’ll see will ask you to enter your product key so you can “Activate Windows.” However, you can just click the “I don’t have a product key” link at the bottom of the window and Windows will allow you to continue the installation process.
You may be asked to enter a product key later in the process, too–if you are, just look for a similar small link to skip that screen.If you don’t see this option, you can also provide a to continue. These keys won’t give you an activated copy of Windows unless you’re in an organization with a Key Management Service, but they will allow you to get through the Windows installation process.When you select this option, you’ll be able to install either “Windows 10 Home” or “Windows 10 Pro.” Bear in mind that, if you plan to pay to upgrade to the paid version later, it’ll be cheaper to upgrade to Windows 10 Home, so you may want to install the Home version. Whatever version you choose, Windows 10 will install normally. The Cosmetic LimitationsRELATED:After you’ve installed Windows 10 without a key,. However, an unactivated version of Windows 10 doesn’t have many restrictions. With Windows XP, Microsoft actually used Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) to disable access to your computer. These days, Windows just complains at you in a few minor, cosmetic ways.
Initially, you won’t notice a difference. Eventually, Windows will start nagging you a tiny bit.
First, you’ll notice a watermark in the bottom-right corner of your screen. You’ll also see a “Windows isn’t activated.
Activate Windows now.” link at the bottom of the Settings app. This is the only form of nag you’ll see–there are no pop-up windows, for example.Second, you’ll be unable to change your desktop wallpaper and from the Personalization Background screen in the Settings app. You’ll see a “You need to activate Windows before you can personalize your PC” message at the top of this window, and the options for changing your wallpaper will be grayed out.You can still change your wallpaper in other ways, however. For example, you can right-click an image in File Explorer and select “Set as desktop background.” You could also open an image in the Photos app, click the menu button, click “Set as,” and click “Set as background.” Windows 7 eventually switched you back to a black background, but Windows 10 doesn’t seem to do this.You’ll find Windows 10’s included wallpapers under the C:WindowsWeb folder in File Explorer.Aside from these basic limitations, your Windows 10 system will continue to work forever. There are no nag prompts aside from the watermark, you’ll get all the system updates, and everything else is completely functional. The only thing that could change this is a Windows 10 update, but Microsoft has become increasingly lenient since Windows 7. How to Upgrade Windows 10 to an Activated VersionWith Windows 10, you can now pay to upgrade a “non-genuine” copy of Windows to a licensed one.
Open the Settings app and head to Update & Security Activation. You’ll see a “Go to Store” button that will take you to the Windows Store if Windows isn’t licensed.In the Store, you can purchase an official Windows license that will activate your PC. The Home version of Windows 10 costs $120, while the Pro version costs $200. This is a digital purchase, and it will immediately cause your current Windows installation to become activated. You don’t need to purchase a physical license.We installed Windows 10 Professional as an example here, so the Windows Store will only let us purchase the $200 Windows 10 Pro license.This option may not be available in all countries. The prices here are for the US version of the Windows Store.
Microsoft charges different prices in different countries and currencies.Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 worked about the same way. Microsoft just didn’t officially allow you to download Windows without a product key, and there was no way to fully upgrade to a licensed system from within Windows. That makes this all the more tempting with Windows 10–for example, you can install Windows 10 in Boot Camp on your Mac for free and, if you find yourself using it frequently, you can quickly pay to remove the watermark if that’s worth it for you. It’s like a free demo, and you can use it to make all the virtual machines you like for testing purposes.Sure, the license agreement may say you’re not supposed to use it without a key, but Microsoft’s license agreements say all sorts of confusing things. Microsoft’s license agreement still on PCs you build yourself. If Microsoft doesn’t want people using unactivated copies of Windows 10 for extended periods of time, it can release a system update that disables this.