User:Ranzbak

Ranzbak

Nerd that does things with electronics and chemistry.

Projects

FPGA Workshop

Project FPGA workshop
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A workshop to give people the basic knowledge needed to start developing FPGA projects.
Status	Initializing
Contact	Ranzbak
Last Update	2019-03-29

I would like to have the first session of the workshop at Revspace, an Saturday 13th of April. There will be space for at most 8 people.

Prerequisites:

• Installed Icestorm toolchain, that supports the Lattice ICE40UP5K FPGA. For instructions [1]
• A micro usb cable
• A working laptop that can run the Icestorm toolchain (Linux or OSX should be fine, for Windows I don't know)
• 4 hours of your time, an Saturday the 13th (There will be some breaks)
• Some basic knowledge about programming

Appreciated:

• Feedback

Provided: (Per person)

• A UPDuino V2 FPGA development board [[2]]
• Breadboard to install the UPDuino on
• DS18B20 temperature sensor
• some dupont wire
• 2x 12k 1x4.7k resistor

Topics: (If I can fit them all in)

• Basic IO
• Modules
• Constraint files
• The clock
• Using simulation
• Module parameters
• Wires registers and variables
• Arrays
• Verilog tasks, functions, if statements, and for loops.
• Building a simple state machine using case statements

Please install the toolchain before showing up

Because the toolchain is pretty big the compiling takes a long time on my core I5 40 minutes, so having a working toolchain installed saves you a lot of frustratingly long waiting.

If the toolchain is already installed, and you would like to know if your toolchain will work with the development UPDuino V2, do the following:

$ arachne-pnr -h

This results in the help being printed, containing a list of the supported devices:

    -d <device>, --device <device>
        Target device <device>.  Supported devices:
          384 - Lattice Semiconductor iCE40LP384
           1k - Lattice Semiconductor iCE40LP/HX1K
           5k - Lattice Semiconductor iCE40UP5K
         lm4k - Lattice Semiconductor iCE40LM4K
           8k - Lattice Semiconductor iCE40LP/HX8K
        Default: 1k

Notice the line '5k - Lattice Semiconductor iCE40UP5K', this tells you that the toolchain is good to go. If not try to find a newer version and install it before the workshop.