anyone with an entry level FPGA development board (VHDL support) they don't need?

Mon Mar 16 12:31:47 EDT 2020

MicroBlaze used to cost significant dollars to use.  PicoBlaze was the smaller, no-cost option.

Beware of hidden costs associated with the IDE tools.  I bought one Xilinx-based board, where the Vivaldo license was locked to the one board, and for only a limited time.  Once that time expired, yu needed to purchase a regular license.  On the other hand, the Altera line has/had issues where they discontinue support for lines of FPGA chips as they update the IDE.

One other point regarding FPGAs, most tend to be power hogs.
Terry

From: samudra.haque at gmail.com 
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2020 12:12 PM
To: 'Martin' 
Cc: 'Terry N4TLF' ; 'Tacos' 
Subject: RE: anyone with an entry level FPGA development board (VHDL support) they don't need?

Hey all, I just noticed from Joel’s list this one priced economically at $35.90 … https://www.seeedstudio.com/Spartan-Edge-Accelerator-Board-p-4261.html?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=edm&utm_campaign=bazaar_0919&ct=t&mc_cid=2972c7f3ab&mc_eid=5f0fb45d80

Looks interesting no? if treated as a standalone FPGA board – which it can be instead of an Arduino accessory. Any drawbacks? It’s an FPGA development system  I understand that. But then I read that MicroBlaze (Vivado) that can then host FreeRTOS. https://www.freertos.org/a00090.html#XILINX.

So, essentially a replacement for Intel Max 10, Nios II, FreeRTOS combination, at a cheaper I think price, with more gates, and a development board that is current production with a host of documentation? 

http://wiki.seeedstudio.com/Spartan-Edge-Accelerator-Board/

Samudra

From: samudra.haque at gmail.com <samudra.haque at gmail.com> 
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2020 11:30 AM
To: 'Martin' <dcmk1mr2 at gmail.com>
Cc: 'Terry N4TLF' <n4tlf at wb4jfi.com>; 'Tacos' <tacos at amrad.org>
Subject: RE: anyone with an entry level FPGA development board (VHDL support) they don't need?

Hi, Martin, Terry – I zoomed through to try and Intel’s Quartus and the Nios II Embedded Development System to go through a simulated design cycle all the way upto a pin-out matching stage for a real processor. It included adding specific Verilog code to handle some simple-enough signal flow (and, xor, not) etc. for some of the control lines. I was able to figure out quickly the workflow, to synthesize and reach stages before simulation which included “wiring” up the section of the soft processor to the other soft peripherals. 

I obviously don’t have hardware, and the tutorial assumed all was available in the development board  and did not try to actually simulate the circuit as I wanted to evaluate how difficult the challenge of learning these tools were going to be – my confidence is increasing because of this.

That said, another friend explained:

  a.. FPGA 
  b.. FPGA + soft CPU (e.g. Soft processor core in an FPGA, perhaps many of them, and the rest available for standard FPGA applications) 
  c.. FPGA + hard CPU (e.g. Silicon with an embedded hard processor core and FPGA section on same die)

My hope  is to run a FreeRTOS or uC/OS-II as supervisory operating system, with command/telemetry/control/sensor management roles. The FPGA would be for development of the all-important interfaces and logic that would change from project to project. Low capacity (1200 bps, 9600 bps) RF communications.  Absolutely target a lower power/lower capacity system. 

So I was wondering if I could ask your opinion on this low cost board I saw discussed in https://joelw.id.au/FPGA/CheapFPGADevelopmentBoards, from the OMTECH seller  https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000323573953.html

Are US equivalents available somewhere in the same price range?  It’s about the same price as a Intel Max10 FPGA development board (No SOC)

N3RDX

From: samudra.haque at gmail.com <samudra.haque at gmail.com> 
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2020 1:01 PM
To: 'Martin' <dcmk1mr2 at gmail.com>
Cc: 'Terry N4TLF' <n4tlf at wb4jfi.com>; 'Tacos' <tacos at amrad.org>
Subject: RE: anyone with an entry level FPGA development board (VHDL support) they don't need?

Thanks, I’ll have to spend time on different fpga vendor websites. 

From: Martin <dcmk1mr2 at gmail.com> 
Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2020 7:06 PM
To: Samudra Haque <samudra.haque at gmail.com>
Cc: Terry N4TLF <n4tlf at wb4jfi.com>; Tacos <tacos at amrad.org>
Subject: Re: anyone with an entry level FPGA development board (VHDL support) they don't need?

Samudra - the flowchart you posted is for the NIOS II Embedded Processor Design Suite not Quartus Prime Lite for FPGA and SoCs.   NIOS II is a fairly complex 32 bit processor that you probably would never need for an embedded system.

If you want a complex development framework then Quartus is probably a good choice - it will take you weeks or months to become proficient.   Once proficient you can start learning a HDL and FPGA concepts.  

ISE Design Suite, the IDE for older low end Xilinx Spartan FPGAs like the Spartan 6 has been deprecated to help sales of new chips.  

Note that Intel/Altera makes money on IP and there's a lot of open source stuff available for Lattice.  I remember seeing an IDE that worked like gnuradio-companion and took functional blocks like filters/ modulator/demodulator to compile for Lattice FPGAs.  

--Martin

On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 3:12 PM <samudra.haque at gmail.com> wrote:

  Well, yes, Martin, but I willing to take on a complex development framework during the Corona virus downtimes for the benefit it might give me, as I get ready to produce another piece of unique technology this year.

  I admit: so far without an EE formal education, but rather a CS background with practical hardware projects, I was 0.25 EE degree in 1989, 0.5 EE in 1997 when I developed broadband microwave equipment, 0.75 EE by the post-grad development from fundamentals to flight hardware. I wasn’t exposed to FPGA or DSP as I wasn’t in the EE discipline at all but I can do all the math.

  No, I don’t want to spend time in getting to work. I estimate if I had been educated in class in using the toolchain like what I saw in the video I linked, and the tutorial that I am reading through, it would have saved me a whole summer’s worth of heads down work that I completed in 2013 on my own to take the lab bench parts (see picture) using MCF5270 to the proto-flight board (which had different pin outs and different peripherals and different BSP for the RTOS) that used MCF54415 family. To get around the requirement the flight software be mature, I had to develop my own ‘abstraction’ of the pin names/signal names/register maps so that I could (with limited money) test between the lab version (MCF5270) and the flight prototype EM-1 (MCF54415) interchangeably with a runtime firmware flag based upon what hardware was present. 

  Roughly this last year, I was coding BPSK modulators in C++ on my own just as a challenge, but I felt constrained by just programming and wanted to have real hardware to output a signal. Then I stumbled upon FPGA routines for generating carrier waves (ref: https://zipcpu.com/dsp/2017/07/11/simplest-sinewave-generator.html and http://www.andraka.com/files/crdcsrvy.pdf and it just hit me on the head: I was thinking 50 year old design methods:  code first and then separately design the mod/demod using  discrete blocks etc. etc. -- 

  From: Martin <dcmk1mr2 at gmail.com> 
  Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2020 5:08 PM
  To: Samudra Haque <samudra.haque at gmail.com>
  Cc: Terry N4TLF <n4tlf at wb4jfi.com>; Tacos <tacos at amrad.org>
  Subject: Re: anyone with a entry level FPGA development board (VHDL support) they don't need?

  You are making extra work for yourself going Intel or Xilinx.  Those design tools support a large variety of FPGAs - some of which are very large and complex and cost what a house goes for.  You project requires a small, simple FPGA.  Do you want to spend your time leaning a proprietary tool chain or the FPGA basics?  

  https://hackaday.com/2019/07/05/bringing-fpga-development-to-the-masses/ 

  --Martin    

  On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 1:37 PM <samudra.haque at gmail.com> wrote:

    Wow, I am learning a lot thanks to Taco’s forums. I regret not paying attention to FPGA world earlier. I just sat through 30 minutes of a free training course on Intel’s website: and a wholesome review of a tutorial using the flow chart shown below – and it would I am most sure at this point, be easy for me to replicate my manually designed electric rocket subsystem (see pics from 2015) control system, into an FPGA version down to the 10 uS synthetic reprogrammable timebase I had to design, to validate my multi-rocket synchronization routines – I honestly was just paying attention to the physics, and not to the EE techniques then. 

    Back then I was using Netburner hardware, and wholly customized PCB, with IGBT power switches and ~40 amp transient discharges from an inductive energy storage system I calculated manually. Well --- an FPGA containing a soft-core MCU, some external switches, RTOS application (the same possibly that I used in the RTOS of Netburner environment) and some barebones serial comms seem to be practical to implement with these methods, …. And I may be able to develop new control processes and drive other elements .. without much delay ! Perhaps even use the onboard NIOS II DSP section to do mod/demod ? BTW, I liked the training material 100 and 200 level FPGA courses on the intel website, free with registration. Like: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/programmable/support/training/catalog.html?keywords=nios

    From: Terry N4TLF <n4tlf at wb4jfi.com> 
    Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2020 12:54 PM
    To: samudra.haque at gmail.com; 'Martin' <dcmk1mr2 at gmail.com>
    Cc: 'Tacos' <tacos at amrad.org>
    Subject: Re: anyone with a entry level FPGA development board (VHDL support) they don't need?

    Here are a couple of books that might be of interest regarding Verilog:

    This book is interesting, and a little bit different.  It doesn’t require actual hardware for most of it’s content.  I bought the Kindle version.

    https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Video-Game-Hardware-Verilog-ebook/dp/B07LD48CTV/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=verilog+book&qid=1584203304&sr=8-5

    THe title is accurate: a Concise guide to be sure.  Again, not tied to any hardware, and somewhat light on details.  Fairly thin.

    https://www.amazon.com/Verilog-Example-Concise-Introduction-Design/dp/0983497303/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=verilog+book&qid=1584203528&sr=8-1

    I have the Kindle version of this book.  It uses a few specific boards.

    https://www.amazon.com/Programming-FPGAs-Getting-Started-Verilog-ebook/dp/B01M0F1L5G/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=verilog+book&qid=1584203803&sr=8-2

    THis is more expensive, I have the paper version.  It has the most of my bookmarks of any book I have.  That says it all.

    https://www.amazon.com/Embedded-Design-Using-Programmable-Arrays/dp/1589094867/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Embedded+design+using+Programmable&qid=1584204048&sr=8-1

    There are several other books that I have.  Like many other technical references, there is not ONE single book that is best.

    I have used the Papilio and Digilent FPGA boards (among others) to help me learn most of what I have now forgotten, regarding FPGAs.  I now have some newer boards boards based on Zynq FPGAs, such as the Red Pitaya, a MicroZed, and others.  These are MUCH more powerful, but also much more complicated.  My brain hurts whenever I delve into them.

    73, Terry, N4TLF

    From: samudra.haque at gmail.com 

    Sent: Friday, March 13, 2020 8:42 PM

    To: 'Martin' 

    Cc: 'Tacos' 

    Subject: RE: anyone with a entry level FPGA development board (VHDL support) they don't need?

    Hi Martin, thanks for the tip. I went looking for the board you recommended from Lattice (it’s offered at a good price) but if I am not mistaken, it doesn’t have any peripherals such as switches  for onboard experiments? The photos show it comes with LEDs, but no switches.

    Then I went looking for the icestorm documentation and it seems they ship from UK (the blackice boards) so despite those development boards being chock full of accessories for experimentation, the shipping delay and cost sort of makes it expensive.

    So, randomly I searched and came across (comments requested) for about $43.85 total with shipping:

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/STEP-MAX10-Intel-Altera-FPGA-development-board/143318504573?hash=item215e72d47d%3Ag%3AlcQAAOSwARpdGDCw&LH_BO=1

    and according to the website http://www.stepfpga.org/step-max10-development-board/  it is fully supported by:

    Altera MAX10 FPGA: 10M02/10M08

    On board USB Blaster programming circuit

    2-character 7-segment display

    Two RGB LEDs

    Four switches

    Four push buttons

    Eight user LEDs

    Power from MicroUSB connector

    40 pins DIP connector with 36 User I/Os

    ·        STEP-MAX10 Hardware Manual 1.0

    ·        STEP-MAX10 Software Manual 1.0

    ·        STEP-MAX10 Source Code

    ·        STEP-MAX10 Schematic diagram

    ·        Software&Tools

    The software suite is … Altera (Microsoft) Quartus Prime Lite, which includes ModelSim for soft logic analyzer waveform output … and supports Verilog and VHDL. I think that could be ok for mid-level developers, right?

    But since the documentation says “On board JTAG programming circuit”, is an actual JTAG gadget still necessary for this device, or is that functionality already included somehow?

    From: Martin <dcmk1mr2 at gmail.com> 
    Sent: Friday, March 13, 2020 7:26 PM
    To: Samudra Haque <samudra.haque at gmail.com>
    Cc: Tacos <tacos at amrad.org>
    Subject: Re: anyone with a entry level FPGA development board (VHDL support) they don't need?

    You might want to take a look at  https://www.amazon.com/LATTICE-SEMICONDUCTOR-ICE40HX1K-STICK-EVN-Evaluation-iCE40HX1K/dp/B00R3QU9K0  for a board and do a google search for Windows iceStorm support.  The are more expensive FPGAs from Intel/Altera amd Xilinx but the tool chains are awful.

    You also might want to check to see if you really want to invest in VHDL or if Verilog might be better for your needs.  It doesn't hurt to know both but Verilog is more like C and is less trouble to learn.

    Learning to simulate is a really import skill for FPGA development so you can get started with that before you have hardware.

    73 Martin W6MRR

    On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 3:50 PM <samudra.haque at gmail.com> wrote:

      I would like to do an experiment with an FPGA development board. I’m looking for something with pinouts or with a switch + LED; My experience with VHDL is very limited. I will be using Windows 10 for my development environment. 

      If anyone has a board they don’t need, would you be willing to sell it at a Tippy’s Taco’s meetup to me? Send me the product manufacturer part number and your ask to samudra.haque at gmail.com. 

      Also, if I had no FPGA board, is there a emulator environment that I can compile the code and get a testbench / diagram of the signals? At least I could begin coding / developing the framework right away.

      73 de Samudra N3RDX

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