EEVblog Electronics Community Forum

Electronics => PCB/EDA/CAD => KiCad => Topic started by: caius on February 17, 2020, 09:18:42 pm

Title: Schematics conversion into valid Verilog code
Post by: caius on February 17, 2020, 09:18:42 pm
I successfully use Kicad since many years, I love it and I think I'll never switch to something else.I was just wondering if there is some tool to convert Kicad schematics into valid Verilog code that you can use in Quartus for example.
Title: Re: Schematics conversion into valid Verilog code
Post by: Doctorandus_P on February 29, 2020, 08:43:28 am
I also like KiCad, but never used Verilog and do not know what such a program should do.

As KiCad is fully Free & Open Source software there are a lot of "side projects" around KiCad. From extracting component data from PDF's. scripts for generating netlists, tools for generating different kind of BOM lists and many more.

Some are well maintained, others are in varying levels of bitrot.
I've seen pages on github where some people kept lists of such tools of external projects around KiCad.

File formats in KiCad are also Open and pretty easily readable ASCII, and tools / libaries for writing those files are of course also a part of the KiCad project.

But what sort of level of conversion are you looking for?
Just a netlist thing, or do you want it to automatically insert a softcore if you use a uC in your schematic?
Title: Re: Schematics conversion into valid Verilog code
Post by: caius on February 29, 2020, 10:04:45 am
Quote from: Doctorandus_P on February 29, 2020, 08:43:28 am

But what sort of level of conversion are you looking for?
Just a netlist thing, or do you want it to automatically insert a softcore if you use a uC in your schematic?

Yes, I woul like something able to convert schematics into valid Verilog code that then I can compile to program CPLDs (like Atera MAX7000 or Atmel ATF15XX)
Title: Re: Schematics conversion into valid Verilog code
Post by: ebastler on March 05, 2020, 06:04:18 am
Would this work as a starting point?
https://github.com/efarres/KiCad-HDL

(No personal experience with it at all, just found it via Google.)
Title: Re: Schematics conversion into valid Verilog code
Post by: rea5245 on February 01, 2023, 06:14:14 pm
I just released a KiCad plugin that generates Verilog from a schematic. You can see it at https://github.com/galacticstudios/KiCadVerilog
Title: Re: Schematics conversion into valid Verilog code
Post by: bson on February 03, 2023, 01:25:49 am
Why would you not use the built-in logical operators for gates, flip-flops and such?
Title: Re: Schematics conversion into valid Verilog code
Post by: rea5245 on February 03, 2023, 01:39:56 am
Quote from: bson on February 03, 2023, 01:25:49 am
Why would you not use the built-in logical operators for gates, flip-flops and such?

It depends what your goal is.

My goal was to make a homebrew CPU using off-the-shelf parts. So I made a schematic using those parts, then converted it to Verilog and simulated it before actually buying everything and building it.