FPGA for a beginner

I know this subject is very repetitive, but It's very confusing to me. I'm familiar to verilog coding and digital circuit designing but I haven't work with FPGAs. I want to learn it. could you please help me? Thanks.

On December 23rd, 2015, Hamid Kavianathar posted:
|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"I know this subject is very repetitive, but It's very confusing to |
|me. I'm familiar to verilog coding and digital circuit designing but|
|I haven't work with FPGAs. I want to learn it. could you please help|
|me? Thanks."                                                        |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------|


Dear Hamid Kavianathar:

This is repetitive and well worth repeating - use VHDL. A good author
is Dr. Peter Ashenden. He is the author of "The Student's Guide to
VHDL" -
  WWW.Ashenden.com.Au

Regards,
Nicholas Collin Paul de Gloucester

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 7:04:50 AM UTC-8, Nicholas Collin Paul de Gloucester wrote:
> On December 23rd, 2015, Hamid Kavianathar posted:
> |--------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"I know this subject is very repetitive, but It's very confusing to |
> |me. I'm familiar to verilog coding and digital circuit designing but|
> |I haven't work with FPGAs. I want to learn it. could you please help|
> |me? Thanks."                                                        |
> |--------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 
> 
> Dear Hamid Kavianathar:
> 
> This is repetitive and well worth repeating - use VHDL. A good author
> is Dr. Peter Ashenden. He is the author of "The Student's Guide to
> VHDL" -
>   WWW.Ashenden.com.Au
> 
> Regards,
> Nicholas Collin Paul de Gloucester

thanks for your attention. Excuse me, I've studied VHDL. I want to learn how to use ISE, ... . 

Hamid Kavianathar wrote:


> 
> thanks for your attention. Excuse me, I've studied VHDL. I want to learn
> how to use ISE, ... .
Sure.  Download Ise and get the webpack license - free, but you have to 
register and go through some hassle filling out a few forms.

I do all my work on smaller FPGAs and CPLDs, so the webpack license supports 
all the devices I need.

Really, there are only a few major parts of Ise you need to be concerned 
with.  First, of course, is the HDL language of your choice.  I also prefer 
VHDL, it may be a hair more verbose and requires you to specify many type 
conversions, but I think that latter bit is a plus!

Second, you need to learn how to run the simulator, and how to build test 
benches of stimuli for the VHDL logic to respond to.  Not real hard, but 
REALLY gets verbose to flip bits on and off, delay a while, flip some more 
bits, etc.

The last parts are the constraints file and Impact to download the config to 
real hardware.

Xilinx' docs are not bad.  If you can't find it there, they have forums that 
can give a lot of help.

Jon

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 10:53:13 AM UTC-8, Jon Elson wrote:
> Hamid Kavianathar wrote:
> 
> 
> > 
> > thanks for your attention. Excuse me, I've studied VHDL. I want to learn
> > how to use ISE, ... .
> Sure.  Download Ise and get the webpack license - free, but you have to 
> register and go through some hassle filling out a few forms.
> 
> I do all my work on smaller FPGAs and CPLDs, so the webpack license supports 
> all the devices I need.
> 
> Really, there are only a few major parts of Ise you need to be concerned 
> with.  First, of course, is the HDL language of your choice.  I also prefer 
> VHDL, it may be a hair more verbose and requires you to specify many type 
> conversions, but I think that latter bit is a plus!
> 
> Second, you need to learn how to run the simulator, and how to build test 
> benches of stimuli for the VHDL logic to respond to.  Not real hard, but 
> REALLY gets verbose to flip bits on and off, delay a while, flip some more 
> bits, etc.
> 
> The last parts are the constraints file and Impact to download the config to 
> real hardware.
> 
> Xilinx' docs are not bad.  If you can't find it there, they have forums that 
> can give a lot of help.
> 
> Jon

thanks Jon. You helped me a lot.

On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 12:53:07 -0600, Jon Elson wrote:

> Hamid Kavianathar wrote:
> 

Jon's post is pretty much spot on, I'd only add a slighly different 
perspective...

> I also
> prefer VHDL, it may be a hair more verbose and requires you to specify
> many type conversions, but I think that latter bit is a plus!

I see it differently : if you find yourself writing many type 
conversions, it usually shows a problem with the design. Something has 
been declared with the wrong type : step back, look at the design again.

When you see it, use the right type in the first place. Most of the 
conversions will disappear, leaving a cleaner, simpler design.

One of VHDL's strengths is the way the type system can help you, if you 
let it instead of fighting it.

> Second, you need to learn how to run the simulator, and how to build
> test benches of stimuli for the VHDL logic to respond to.  Not real
> hard, but REALLY gets verbose to flip bits on and off, delay a while,
> flip some more bits, etc.

But if you write the same flipping code more than twice, it's time to 
move it into a procedure.

Using VHDL at a higher level, it can become less verbose, more reusable, 
and certainly easier to understand.

Once you have grasped the basics, and move on to more complex projects, 
you'll want to look at advanced verification tools, such as OSVVM, and 
the VUnit testing framework. 

Another strength of VHDL is that these tools are pure VHDL, free, and 
open-source, where alternatives might require you to move from Verilog to 
System Verilog and expensive closed source tools.

OSVVM:
www.osvvm.org

VUnit
https://github.com/LarsAsplund/vunit
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/free-open-source-verification-vunit-ghdl-
lars-asplund?trk=prof-post

-- Brian

On Thursday, December 24, 2015 at 6:54:50 AM UTC-8, Brian Drummond wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 12:53:07 -0600, Jon Elson wrote:
> 
> > Hamid Kavianathar wrote:
> > 
> 
> Jon's post is pretty much spot on, I'd only add a slighly different 
> perspective...
> 
> > I also
> > prefer VHDL, it may be a hair more verbose and requires you to specify
> > many type conversions, but I think that latter bit is a plus!
> 
> I see it differently : if you find yourself writing many type 
> conversions, it usually shows a problem with the design. Something has 
> been declared with the wrong type : step back, look at the design again.
> 
> When you see it, use the right type in the first place. Most of the 
> conversions will disappear, leaving a cleaner, simpler design.
> 
> One of VHDL's strengths is the way the type system can help you, if you 
> let it instead of fighting it.
> 
> > Second, you need to learn how to run the simulator, and how to build
> > test benches of stimuli for the VHDL logic to respond to.  Not real
> > hard, but REALLY gets verbose to flip bits on and off, delay a while,
> > flip some more bits, etc.
> 
> But if you write the same flipping code more than twice, it's time to 
> move it into a procedure.
> 
> Using VHDL at a higher level, it can become less verbose, more reusable, 
> and certainly easier to understand.
> 
> Once you have grasped the basics, and move on to more complex projects, 
> you'll want to look at advanced verification tools, such as OSVVM, and 
> the VUnit testing framework. 
> 
> Another strength of VHDL is that these tools are pure VHDL, free, and 
> open-source, where alternatives might require you to move from Verilog to 
> System Verilog and expensive closed source tools.
> 
> OSVVM:
> www.osvvm.org
> 
> VUnit
> https://github.com/LarsAsplund/vunit
> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/free-open-source-verification-vunit-ghdl-
> lars-asplund?trk=prof-post
> 
> -- Brian

Thanks Brian, your comment is very helpful. after choosing the language, I should learn how to use FPGAs. could you please help me? I need your experience.

On 12/25/2015 5:34 AM, Hamid Kavianathar wrote:
>
> Thanks Brian, your comment is very helpful. after choosing the language, I should learn how to use FPGAs. could you please help me? I need your experience.

The tools have their own peculiarities.  I am no longer familiar with 
the Xilinx tools.  The parts all the tools have in common is that you 
have to specify your pin out with attention to the location of special 
purpose signals like clocks or differential I/Os.  You will also need to 
set up timing constraints to help placement and routing to meet your 
needs for speed.

If you have a design that will be hard to meet timing, you may need to 
specify placement of critical components.  That is very unique to each 
brand of tool.

-- 

Rick

I started learning on my own after I bought an Altera dev board. They have great documentation and video tutorials and their software is fairly intuitive. After you create an account go to their documentation section and take a look.

Would recommend this board for the price and available resources (it's 30$ on Arrow). It has some tutorials to get you started:
http://www.alterawiki.com/wiki/BeMicro_Max_10
http://www.alterawiki.com/uploads/5/52/BeMicroM10_Simple_PWM_Lab.pdf

The single best moment while learning was when I managed to get VGA output to my monitor. It required some soldering though - there are more expensive boards that have the plug already connected:
http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=167&No=921

http://www.fpga4fun.com/PongGame.html

On Sunday, December 27, 2015 at 2:15:03 AM UTC-3, rickman wrote:
> On 12/25/2015 5:34 AM, Hamid Kavianathar wrote:
> >
> > Thanks Brian, your comment is very helpful. after choosing the language, I should learn how to use FPGAs. could you please help me? I need your experience.
> 
> The tools have their own peculiarities.  I am no longer familiar with 
> the Xilinx tools.  The parts all the tools have in common is that you 
> have to specify your pin out with attention to the location of special 
> purpose signals like clocks or differential I/Os.  You will also need to 
> set up timing constraints to help placement and routing to meet your 
> needs for speed.
> 
> If you have a design that will be hard to meet timing, you may need to 
> specify placement of critical components.  That is very unique to each 
> brand of tool.
> 
> -- 
> 
> Rick

On 12/27/2015 12:18 PM, Emilian Miron wrote:
> I started learning on my own after I bought an Altera dev board. They have great documentation and video tutorials and their software is fairly intuitive. After you create an account go to their documentation section and take a look.
>
> Would recommend this board for the price and available resources (it's 30$ on Arrow). It has some tutorials to get you started:
> http://www.alterawiki.com/wiki/BeMicro_Max_10
> http://www.alterawiki.com/uploads/5/52/BeMicroM10_Simple_PWM_Lab.pdf
>
> The single best moment while learning was when I managed to get VGA output to my monitor. It required some soldering though - there are more expensive boards that have the plug already connected:
> http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=167&No=921
>
> http://www.fpga4fun.com/PongGame.html

Yeah, not bad.  I recently got one of these...

http://www.em.avnet.com/en-us/design/drc/Pages/Microsemi-SmartFusion2-KickStart-Development-Kit.aspx

http://www.microsemi.com/products/fpga-soc/design-resources/dev-kits/smartfusion2/kickstart-kit

Haven't done much with it yet, still learning the tools.  They have an 
Android app to test the Bluetooth but I don't have anything Android. 
Durn.

-- 

Rick