Author Topic: Online FPGA simulator?  (Read 18673 times)

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Offline DmeadsTopic starter

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Re: Online FPGA simulator?
« Reply #25 on: May 20, 2019, 03:07:41 am »
Okay,

Im the OP, and here's what I did with the information yall gave me:

I bought a Lattice ICEstick FPGA dev board (25 bucks)

I am currently going through a bunch of Hackaday forums and thats helping me learn EDA playground. The simulator on that is just fine for what I need, and its in a browser, not a an application.

I haven't actually programmed the hardware yet, but I will soon!

Thanks for all the info!

Its actually a lot more fun than I thought!

 

Online tggzzz

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Re: Online FPGA simulator?
« Reply #26 on: May 20, 2019, 07:14:52 am »
Really, trying to debug an FPGA in a more complex system with just a scope can be very frustrating.

As opposed to simulating a USB controller, DDR SDRAM, and numerous complex proprietary peripherals for which you don't have models?

Simulation has its value in education, but you'll never convince me that it's a win in real-world complex designs.  The effort required to keep the simulation faithful to the peripheral hardware, including aspects that aren't documented, will generally be higher than the effort needed to debug the hardware itself. 

Those are valid points, but there is another benefit to simulation: rerunning previous validation and verification tests when something changes.

Changes can be any of:
  • the next incremental implementation of part of a design. The software world has triumphantly reinvented this concept as TDD!
  • a peripheral change
  • changed requirements, either from the customer or based on improved understanding
  • changed device, within limits!
and there are many others, of course.

Of course the temptation is to use TDD as a crutch, "it passes the simulation tests, therefore it works". Inappropriate use of any tool is possible, and probable with some people :(

Normally in large designs developing and maintaining tests takes at least as much time as developing the implementation. The benefits can and should be reduced integration times, coupled with the ability to point fingers at other people/companies :)
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
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Online KE5FX

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Re: Online FPGA simulator?
« Reply #27 on: May 20, 2019, 07:44:48 am »
Of course the temptation is to use TDD as a crutch, "it passes the simulation tests, therefore it works". Inappropriate use of any tool is possible, and probable with some people :(

Old serviceman's adage: "The only tube tester that matters is the set itself."

The more things change...
 

Online rstofer

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Offline Old Printer

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Re: Online FPGA simulator?
« Reply #29 on: May 20, 2019, 03:03:53 pm »
A free book:

http://freerangefactory.org/pdf/df344hdh4h8kjfh3500ft2/free_range_vhdl.pdf

Thanks, price is right and it's under 200 pages.

To the OP... If any of those Hackaday pages were particularity useful a link or two would be a good followup for those of us tagging along. Thanks.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2019, 03:08:10 pm by Old Printer »
 

Offline DmeadsTopic starter

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Re: Online FPGA simulator?
« Reply #30 on: May 24, 2019, 05:13:57 am »

Thanks, price is right and it's under 200 pages.

To the OP... If any of those Hackaday pages were particularity useful a link or two would be a good followup for those of us tagging along. Thanks.
https://hackaday.com/2018/08/06/learn-fpga-fast-with-hackadays-fpga-boot-camp/

i have only done the first two modules of the boot camp, but its very good. Al is good at explaining.

Eda playground is fun to use, and there are a bunch of good videos on it.

https://www.youtube.com/user/edaplayground


So far I have been just working on shematic description in verilog (not circuit behavior), and I have successfuly built some gates and latches.

The hard part for me is making the test bench, because im used to SPICE where you can just hit run and it simulates for you. Verilog is a little different.

Its my first coding language (although I know some very basic arduino), and its going well! Thanks to everyone for all the replies and links to the posts.


 


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