Author Topic: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?  (Read 23228 times)

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Offline BieniebooTopic starter

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FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« on: January 16, 2014, 03:50:13 am »
Hi I want to start learning about FPGA's where do I begin? I understand Xilinx is the leader in this category but as a beginner in general to electronics it's a bit overwhelming.  Is there a development board that I should buy to hit the ground running making some basic projects.  I started off with arduino's so my knowledge in this category is basic to none. But I'm still eager to try something new.

Also what language do I have to learn to get started, and am I way off for evening starting here is there other stepping stones that I should take first?

In the Xilinx website they have Virtex UltraScale, Kintex ultraScale, Virtex 7, artix-7, and spartan-6, 3d IC's SoCs.  What's the difference?

Thanks for any feedback.
 

Offline RRobot

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2014, 04:43:12 am »
Start with a good book. You need to learn digital logic well and although you can do FPGA design with schematic capture you will need to learn either Verilog or VHDL as well. Then get a Xilinx dev board and download the Xilinx ISE package. I started with the Spartan 3e starter kit from Diligent/Xilinx. Not sure if its still made or if there are better/cheaper alternatives. What ever you do try to get a dev board with some tutorials on ISE as it can be a bit daunting to work your way around.

A good book to start with is "Digital Design and Architecture" by David Harris and Sara Harris which will take you from digital logic basics to developing a MIPS CPU. Besides the schematics it also develops in Verilog and VHDL side by side. Very gentle pace, although you will have to study it carefully. You can check out the reviews here:

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Design-Computer-Architecture-Second/dp/0123944244/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389847480&sr=1-1&keywords=Digital+Design+and+Architecture

Good luck.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2014, 04:47:27 am by RRobot »
 

Offline Bassman59

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2014, 04:52:44 am »
In the Xilinx website they have Virtex UltraScale, Kintex ultraScale, Virtex 7, artix-7, and spartan-6, 3d IC's SoCs.  What's the difference?

The difference is complexity. Virtex 7 is a huge (expensive) part. Artix 7 is a simpler device in the "7" series. "3D" refers to how the die are stacked in the package, which is wholly uninteresting to most people. The SoC ("System on a Chip") devices roll a microcontroller (in Zync it's an ARM) in with the FPGA fabric. For some applications this is great; for learning FPGAs it's not necessary and just adds a level of tools bullshit that will prove frustrating.

A good starter board is the Xilinx kit based on one of the Spartan 3A or 3AN devices. The parts are big enough to learn with but not so huge that the board is cost-prohibitive.
 

Offline zapta

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2014, 05:01:49 am »
No need to buy a board, sow download xilix free tools, write hdl code, simulate and learn. This is what you Wii would do anyway with a board.
 

Offline jeremy

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2014, 05:02:21 am »
Go grab a digilent board with USB like the nexys 2 or 3. They have a lot of documentation available and the boards themselves are top notch (I have the nexys 1, 2, 3 and a zedboard). I would also try and get a spartan6 board if you can, lots of new stuff in them over the 3 series.

If you are interested in Altera, the DE0 Nano is also a great board.

I also second the Dave Harris book. 
 

Offline 0utsider89

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2014, 05:50:13 am »
Also this is a good little video series to look at:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL73E0741DD80FABF7
 

Offline Dago

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #6 on: January 16, 2014, 07:44:18 am »
I'd suggest to avoid Xilinx and use Altera cause the Xilinx tools are awful compared to Altera, IMHO.
Come and check my projects at http://www.dgkelectronics.com ! I also tweet as https://twitter.com/DGKelectronics
 

Offline mathias

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #7 on: January 16, 2014, 12:10:16 pm »
In general, Altera dev boards are somewhat cheaper than their Xilinx counterparts. I have had a great experience with Terasic's DE0 for only 80 EUR.
 

Offline TheGreatGooglyMoogly

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #8 on: January 16, 2014, 07:34:31 pm »
My vote is on a Terasic Altera board. Great features and good price. Choose a Cyclone board (they are the lowest cost FPGA according to Altera) and I find that Altera's software solution (Quartus II) is easier to learn. I am biased though, I was taught Altera in university classes.

Hmm I sound like an AVR Altera fanboi  :blah:
 

Offline gocemk

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2014, 09:35:00 pm »
If you decide to buy a board, spend some (little) extra money and go for the brands like Digilent/Terassic. DO NOT buy the cheap chinese one's on Ebay. They claim they have examples in both VHDL and Verilog, but trust me, half of these examples don't work. I bought the Open3S500E board with Xilinx Spartan 3s500e in PQ208 package. The board + the programmer costed around 90$, but as i said, the examples do not work and the documentation on the board is somewhat scarce. The board and the programmer are working fine with Xilinx ISE 12.1. Although the board is quite feature rich (you can add VGA, PS/2, LCD, SDRAM, etc...) i wouldn't recommend it for someone who is just starting with FPGA's. I don't know about the other chinese boards out there, but i think they are all similar examples/documentation wise.

As for books, if you decide to go with Xilinx, especially the Spartan 3 family, check out "FPGA Prototyping By Verilog Examples: Xilinx Spartan-3 Version" by Pong Chu. There is also VHDL version.
 

Offline BBQ

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2014, 10:15:26 pm »
I personally bought a DE1 board (Altera) from Terasic, which i guess is obsolete now.

In my opinion Quartus II is pretty user-hostile, but it sounds like all the IDEs are crap!

In another opinion just buy the cheapest board you can find an get started and add whatever stuff you need along the way, just don't forget that some boards needs a separate programmer.
 

Offline rsjsouza

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #11 on: January 17, 2014, 11:59:17 am »
Chris and Dave mentioned in this Amphour episode an electronic book by Dave Vandenbout that looks really interesting: FPGAs!? Now What?
Vbe - vídeo blog eletrônico http://videos.vbeletronico.com

Oh, the "whys" of the datasheets... The information is there not to be an axiomatic truth, but instead each speck of data must be slowly inhaled while carefully performing a deep search inside oneself to find the true metaphysical sense...
 

Online nctnico

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #12 on: January 17, 2014, 11:42:28 pm »
I'd start with CPLDs to get basic VHDL skills. CPLDs are generally easier to understand and easier to use in your own circuit. Some (like Xilinx' XC9500 series) come in a PLCC package which can be used on a vero board.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Lunasix

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #13 on: January 18, 2014, 10:34:36 pm »
I started Xilinx with XC3030 in... 1989. I stopped with Virtex in 2004 when I started a new life in another job and, when, in 2009, I decided to use a fpga in a new design, I considered Actel (Microsemi now) and found it was a good choice for many reasons : simple power supply, flash memory (no need to load component at power up, update possible with uP with jtag), low prices and low pincount for small design, easy to buy (Mouser and now DigiKey). I think I will probably, soon or late, go back to Xilinx for some reasons, but Microsemi can be a good choice. And Vhdl (or Verilog) is always the same, and software tools use same steps (and ModelSim for simulation).
 

Offline powermosfet

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #14 on: January 19, 2014, 07:14:00 pm »
I started with Altera de1. Relatively cheap compared to others,  good forum support.
 

Offline Scrts

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #15 on: January 19, 2014, 08:20:25 pm »
If You'd check this one:
http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=167&No=816&PartNo=2
The FPGA has 110k LEs, which is HUUUGE. I have a project, where I used EP3C55 Cyclone III, 55k LEs FPGA and is is a very big project with  gigabit Ethernet, Nios II/f fast softcore (running TCP/IP stack), hardware floating point division, 14 custom DMAs, 5 separate memory interfaces and so on. This Cyclone V also has dual-core Cortex-A9 for embedded applications. For this price - this is a very good deal. Plus this one also have transceivers, so when You'll get used to FPGAs, it is possible to interface PCIe there or any high-speed interface as SATA, HDMI, etc.
 

Offline GiskardReventlov

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #16 on: January 20, 2014, 12:21:27 am »
As others noted you don't need to buy anything but if you want hardware to play with these might work for you:

de0-nano (Altera Cyclone IV)
http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&No=593&PartNo=7

xula2-lx9 (Xilinx Spartan LX9)
http://www.xess.com/shop/product/xula2-lx9/

I like this site:
http://www.fpga4fun.com/digitalscope.html
http://www.fpga4fun.com/Links.html
 

Offline mrflibble

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #17 on: January 20, 2014, 11:40:59 am »
Current low cost favorite: http://www.latticesemi.com/icestick

That said, you could just get the free vendor tools to check if this is your thing or not.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #18 on: January 20, 2014, 12:02:27 pm »
I'm doing a video series on looking at some FPGA starter kits (not tutorials, a first impressions type thing). Have had two videos shot for ages, but haven't done the other two. I'm a slacker.
One of the Digilet or Terasic ones will do you just fine.
 

Offline powermosfet

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #19 on: January 20, 2014, 05:58:34 pm »
A colleague of mine has purchased Mojo FPGA dev board (Spartan 6), Mojo looks very beginner friendly. You may want to consider doing something that.
 

Offline meerweten

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #20 on: January 22, 2014, 07:37:50 pm »
i started a few weeks ago with the altera cyclone boards, (well "started" i already learned how to use fpga's with xilinxs spartan 3E last year)
i bought the altera cyclone II (http://www.miniinthebox.com/altera-cycloneii-ep2c5t144-fpga-mini-development-board_p391007.html) i bought it for like 8€ (about 10 US$) just before the end of the year ( + a 5V adapter (2A) and a "altera" usb blaster, probably a copy but it works fine).
total of a 20€ (inlcudong wires/3lcd screens, the above mentioned parts)


Meerweten, Want meten is Weten
 

Offline Chipguy

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #21 on: April 21, 2014, 01:23:00 pm »
Hoooy !

Today I played around with the Lattice ICEStick.
Here a little review for starters:

1) The ICEStick costs around 20-30 EUR/USD/AUD. I paid 20 EUR plus tax for it.
2) You need to register with lattice, download the design and programmer software and apply the free license.
3) You need to download the manual for the ICEStick as well. It contains important step-by-step information on how to set up the programming tool.
You will need to do a lot of settings in the Diamong Programmer software so it can be used with the SPI flash on the ICEStick.

Once done you can also download "LED_rotation". That is the design which the ICEStick is programmed with when delivered.
In order to check if the environment works you can compile the design and see if there are any errors.
The "Diamond Programmer" is a stand alone software which can be used seemingless with the ICECube2 design software.
You only need to click the "Program" button and it checks automatically if there is a new HEX or BIN file to program.

A good start to see if everything is working, just change the direction of the rotating LEDs from clockwise to counterclockwise.

You can do that by editing the assign statements in verlog like that:
assign LED1 = (dec_cntr == 3) ;
assign LED2 = (dec_cntr == 2) ;
assign LED3 = (dec_cntr == 1) ;
assign LED4 = (dec_cntr == 0) ;

If this all works, you are ready to go and can implement your own designs.

Where is that smoke coming from?
 

Offline djsb

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #22 on: April 21, 2014, 03:07:57 pm »
Just bought myself a Papilio Pro and LogicStart Megawing from Seeed Studio

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/Papilio-Pro-p-1301.html?cPath=6_10

and

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/LogicStart-MegaWing-p-1636.html

I'll let the forum know when they arrive.

David
David
Hertfordshire, UK
University Electronics Technician, London, PIC16/18, CCS PCM C, Arduino UNO, NANO,ESP32, KiCad V8+, Altium Designer 21.4.1, Alibre Design Expert 28 & FreeCAD beginner. LPKF S103,S62 PCB router Operator, Electronics instructor. Credited KiCad French to English translator
 

Offline Chipguy

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #23 on: April 21, 2014, 04:30:43 pm »
Just bought myself a Papilio Pro and LogicStart Megawing from Seeed Studio
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/Papilio-Pro-p-1301.html?cPath=6_10
I'll let the forum know when they arrive.

David
Yeah that's looks like a nice one for more complex stuff.
Let us know how it goes once they arrive, that's gonna be interesting.

Chpiguy
Where is that smoke coming from?
 

Offline hamster_nz

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Re: FPGA newbie - Where do I start?
« Reply #24 on: April 22, 2014, 09:00:51 am »
Just bought myself a Papilio Pro and LogicStart Megawing from Seeed Studio

...

I sort of, um, wrote a FPGA crash course on them a few years ago during the Christmas holidays. You can find it for free at http://hamsterworks.co.nz/mediawiki/index.php/FPGA_course, and you can also find some of my FPGA hackings at http://hamsterworks.co.nz/mediawiki/index.php/FPGA_Projects.

Maybe they will inspire you a little... also the GadgetFactory forums are very friendly too.
Gaze not into the abyss, lest you become recognized as an abyss domain expert, and they expect you keep gazing into the damn thing.
 


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