Nowadays you can find many low-cost microcontroller devboards (starting from just few dollars/euros). More recently, we’ve seen ARM Cortex kits for $10-$50, the flowering of the whole Arduino ecosystem, and of course, the Raspberry Pi. It’s microcontroller heaven with very many dev boards available. You you want more performance, there is a wide selection of Linux friendly single board computers in around $35 to $200 range.
What do you want to try next after microcontroller dev boards? Maybe FPGA. A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturing. FPGAs contain programmable logic components called “logic blocks”, and a hierarchy of reconfigurable interconnects that allow the blocks to be “wired together” – somewhat like many (changeable) logic gates that can be inter-wired in (many) different configurations. Logic blocks can be configured to perform complex combinational functions, or merely simple logic gates like AND and XOR.
Those of us wanting a cheap “in” to the FPGA world have been less lucky than developers looking for microcontroller dev boards. FPGA boards under $100: Introduction article is indicting that the times, they are a changin’. Many FPGA devkits, from both chipmakers and third parties, have broken – or downright shattered – the $100 barrier, opening the door to low-cost FPGA prototyping, education, hobby projects, and so on. FPGA boards under $100: Introduction article offers a good overview of what is available.
Here are some interesting additions to the listed boards:
Hacklet 28 – Programmable Logic Hacks posting tells about Arduino-Compatible FPGA Shield. The shield features a Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA and is available in The Hackaday Store. It has the needed regulators and level shifters. The price is $69.97. Not sure where to start? Check out Spartan-6 FPGA Hello World! that uses Xilinx’s free tool chain to getting a “hello world” led blinker running!
Hacklet 28 – Programmable Logic Hacks posting also mentions Chameleon. Chameleon is an Arduino compatible FPGA board with a Xilinx Spartan 3A FPGA on-board. The Chameleon Arduino-compatible shield board was designed to support two general application areas: (1) soft-core processors, and (2) intelligent serial communications interface.
Cheap FPGA-based HDMI Experimenting Board project is designing a (relatively) cheap little board for experimenting with HDMI using a Spartan-6 FPGA.
431 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Creating an FPGA-Based Low-Cost Imaging System
https://www.hackster.io/adam-taylor/creating-an-fpga-based-low-cost-imaging-system-cb18af
Not all imaging systems need to be expensive. Solutions can be created using cost optimized FPGA and CMOS image sensors directly.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://makezine.com/product-review/arduino-mkr-vidor-4000/
Tomi Engdahl says:
MicroZed Chronicles: Using Isolation Flow in Vivado
https://blog.hackster.io/microzed-chronicles-using-isolation-flow-in-vivado-155aba3cd0bb
We recently looked at how we could create a Triple Modular Redundant MicroBlaze solution for use in high reliability applications. Of course, that is not the only design methodology we can deploy in our FPGA /SoC if we are creating a high reliability system.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Using an FPGA to Navigate China’s Railroads
https://hackaday.com/2018/09/23/using-an-fpga-to-navigate-chinas-railroads/
There are over 300 train terminals in China, and finding the quickest route somewhere is not obvious at all. This is an engineering challenge waiting to be solve, and luckily some of the students at Cornell Engineering have taken a stab at efficiently navigating China’s rail system using an FPGA.
The FPGA runs an algorithm for finding the shortest route between two points, called Dijkstra’s algorithm.
ECE5760 Final Project
http://people.ece.cornell.edu/land/courses/ece5760/FinalProjects/s2018/cz382_zz488_bx64/cz382_zz488_bx64/cz382_zz488_bx64/index.html
After the implementation of Dijkstra algorithm in C code, we will implement it on FPGA.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Free for every Reg reader – and everyone else, too: Arm Cortex-M CPUs for Xilinx FPGAs
Like the blueprints we gave away last time… but… better
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/01/arm_cortex_m_xilinx/
If you’ve ever wanted to embed cheap-and-cheerful Arm Cortex CPU cores into your Xilinx FPGA designs, well, now’s your chance.
The processor designer is making its 32-bit microcontroller-grade Cortex-M1 and M3 cores available for Xilinx’s Spartan, Artix, and Zynq chips via its DesignStart program. We’re told there are no royalty nor license fees involved – the designs are available to download and use completely gratis for Xilinx components. The M1 is available from today, and the M3 by the end of the month.
DesignStart is geared toward rapidly thrusting Arm’s lower-end CPU blueprints into the hands of system-on-chip designers who are on a budget or are particularly enamored with FPGAs. You can get Cortex-M0 and M3 blueprints for no upfront fee via DesignStart for Arm’s FPGA prototyping boards. These boards use gate arrays from Altera, which Intel bought in 2015.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Boeing Embraces Embedded FPGAs
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333819
Aerospace giant Boeing is the first customer to tap embedded FPGA cores based on chip maker Flex Logix Technologies’ 14-nm design being manufactured at a U.S. fab.
Flex Logic, Mountain View, CA, said Boeing has licensed its embedded FPGA and programmable logic IP cores to be produced using GlobalFoundries’ FinFET process on its 14-nm line in Malta, NY. The embedded FPGA deal stems from a Defense Department effort that initially allowed the chips to be manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. With trade and security tensions increasing between Beijing and Washington, one key to the licensing deal was the shift to a U.S. fab. All parties involved “really wanted a U.S. manufacturer,” Flex Logix CEO Geoff Tate said in an interview.
While it’s unclear how Boeing will implement the embedded FPGAs, the aerospace contractor is expected to use the cores to develop multiple systems. “We are working with [multiple] business units at Boeing,” Tate said. Boeing launched its new avionics manufacturing unit last year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Free ARM cores for Xilinx FPGAs
https://hackaday.com/2018/10/02/free-arm-cores-for-xilinx-fpgas/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Icestorm Tools Roundup: Open Source FPGA Dev Guide
https://hackaday.com/2018/10/03/icestorm-tools-roundup/
We like the ICE40 FPGA from Lattice for two reasons: there are cheap development boards like the Icestick available for it and there are open source tools. We’ve based several tutorials on the Icestorm toolchain and it works quite well. However, the open source tools don’t always expose everything that you see from commercial tools. You sometimes have to dig a little to find the right tool or option.
https://github.com/YosysHQ
Tomi Engdahl says:
iCEstick Makes Terrible Radio Transmitter
https://hackaday.com/2018/09/30/icestick-makes-terrible-radio-transmitter/
We’ve done a lot of posts on how to use the Lattice iCEstick ranging from FPGA tutorials to how to use one as a logic analyzer. If you picked up one of these inexpensive boards here’s a fun little experiment. [T4D10N] saw a project [Hamster] put together to send SOS on the FM radio band using nothing but an FPGA. [Hamster used a Spartan], so he decided to do the same trick using an iCEstick with the open source IceStorm tools.
https://github.com/r4d10n/iCEstick-hacks
Tomi Engdahl says:
Learn Verilog In Your Browser
https://hackaday.com/2018/09/26/learn-verilog-in-your-browser/
We are big fans of tools in the browser for education. You have a consistent environment maintained by someone else, you don’t have to install anything, and you can work from any computer you happen to find yourself. The HDLBits site has a great set of Verilog “exams” that would be a big help to anyone trying to learn or brush up on their Verilog skills.
We’ve been big fans of EDA Playground which offers a nice environment for experimenting with FPGA code, but it doesn’t challenge you the way this does with a series of progressively more difficult exercises, either
There’s also ASMBits which is the same sort of thing for Nios II or ARMv7 assembly language.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HDLBits — Verilog Practice
https://hdlbits.01xz.net/wiki/Main_Page
Tomi Engdahl says:
eFPGA vs. FPGA Design Methodologies
https://semiengineering.com/efpga-vs-fpga-design-methodologies/
Working with discrete versus embedded programmable logic.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MicroZed Chronicles: XDF & Versal
https://blog.hackster.io/microzed-chronicles-xdf-versal-b5a04cd0f973
Since the first instalment of this blog now five years ago (30/9/2013), we have experienced Xilinx’s transformation from an FPGA company at the beginning of the Zynq 7000 series journey into the platform company it is now.
That journey has taken us from FPGA to the first SoC in the Zynq 7000, to the MPSoC and RFSoC, and now to ACAP.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cloud-Based FPGA Design Tools for On-Demand Needs
https://www.eeweb.com/profile/kirvy-teo/articles/cloud-based-fpga-design-tools-for-on-demand-needs
Tomi Engdahl says:
FPGA configuration using high-speed NOR flash
https://www.embedded.com/design/mcus-processors-and-socs/4461225/FPGA-configuration-using-high-speed-NOR-flash–
NOR Flash memories are widely deployed as configuration devices for FPGAs. FPGA usage in industrial, communications and automotive ADAS applications depends on the low latencies and high data throughput characteristics of NOR Flash. A good example of a fast boot time requirement is the camera system in an automotive environment. The speed at which the rear-view image appears on the dash board display upon ignition is a first-order design challenge.
Immediately after power-up, the FPGA loads the configuration bit stream that has been stored in the NOR device. When the transfer has completed, the FPGA transitions to an active (configured) state. FPGAs include a number of configuration interface options that often include a parallel NOR bus and also a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) bus. Memories supporting these busses have always had minor incompatibilities between offerings from different manufacturers that has made multiple sourcing of memory devices more difficult.
The newly released JEDEC xSPI specification was jointly developed by all the major NOR Flash memory manufacturers. The new standard ends decades of NOR Flash manufacturers developing products independently without adhering to a common definition.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HANDS ON WITH THE ARDUINO FPGA
https://hackaday.com/2018/11/01/hands-on-with-the-arduino-fpga/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chips In Space
Using eFPGAs in satellites and airplanes.
https://semiengineering.com/chips-in-space/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Using AWS F1 FPGA Acceleration
https://www.hackster.io/adam-taylor/using-aws-f1-fpga-acceleration-d5563b
How to create an AWS instance that allows us to develop and accelerate applications using FPGAs in the cloud.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/9yz8ao/i_printed_a_breakout_board_for_the_vidor4000_mini/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quick Face Recognition With An FPGA
https://hackaday.com/2018/11/25/quick-face-recognition-with-an-fpga/
It’s the 21st century, and according to a lot of sci-fi movies we should have perfected AI by now, right? Well we are getting there, and this project from a group of Cornell University students titled, “FPGA kNN Recognition” is a graceful attempt at facial recognition.
FPGA Knn Recognition
http://people.ece.cornell.edu/land/courses/ece5760/FinalProjects/s2018/es876_aw528_bac239/es876_aw528_bac239/es876_aw528_bac239/index.html
The purpose of this project was to design an image recognition and classification system using a kNN algorithm. Utilizing hardware acceleration, we can take a typically slow problem such as classifying an image and turn it into a problem that takes an exponential number of cycles to a linear number of cycles.
This project was implemented on a DE1-SoC development board, using a combination of a Altera Cylcone V and Linux running on an SD Card (HPS).
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://hacks.esar.org.uk/hdmi-light-v2/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Latest TinyFPGA Isn’t So Tiny?
https://blog.hackster.io/the-latest-tinyfpga-isnt-so-tiny-3072e470563e
Tomi Engdahl says:
MIPI CSI-2 Implementation In FPGAs
https://hackaday.com/2018/11/29/mipi-csi-2-implementation-in-fpgas/
MicroZed Chronicles: Working with MIPI
https://blog.hackster.io/microzed-chronicles-working-with-mipi-b16b67990ccc?gi=b801b6c1c3e
Tomi Engdahl says:
GBA on the Big Screen: FPGA Delivers HDMI and Every Feature Imaginable
https://hackaday.com/2018/12/02/gba-on-the-big-screen-fpga-delivers-hdmi-and-every-feature-imaginable/
The concept of creating a gaming portable out of a home console has been around for some time, but it’s hardly seen the other way around. There have been a few devices that dared to straddle the line (i.e., Sega Nomad, Nintendo Switch, etc.), but the two worlds typically remain separate. [Stephen] looked to explore that space by attempting to turn the Game Boy Advance into a “big boy” console. The FPGA-based mod kit he created does just that, and comes complete with controller support and digital video output in 720p over a mini HDMI cable.
http://stephens-projects.com/projects/gbahdmi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Getting Started with Free ARM Cores on Xilinx
https://hackaday.com/2018/12/04/getting-started-with-free-arm-cores-on-xilinx/
We reported earlier about Xilinx offering free-to-use ARM Cortex M1 and M3 cores. [Adam Taylor] posted his experiences getting things working and there’s also a video done by [Geek Til It Hertz] based on the material that you can see in the second video, below.
The post covers using the Arty A35T or Arty S50 FPGA boards (based on Artix FPGAs) and the Xilinx Vivado software. Although Vivado will allow you to do conventional FPGA development, it also can work to compose function blocks to produce CPUs and that’s really what’s going on here.
Getting up and running with Arm Design Start
https://www.element14.com/community/blogs/Exploring_the_Programmable_World/2018/11/19/getting-up-and-running-with-arm-design-start
Tomi Engdahl says:
MicroZed Chronicles: Working with I2C
https://blog.hackster.io/microzed-chronicles-working-with-i2c-c4458fff681d
Tomi Engdahl says:
MicroZed Chronicles: Working with MIPI
https://blog.hackster.io/microzed-chronicles-working-with-mipi-b16b67990ccc
Heterogeneous SoCs like the Zynq and Zynq MPSoC are ideal for image processing
To interface our chosen image sensor or cameras with our SoC/FPGA, there are a range of interface standards from HDMI to LVDS and Parallel.
One very popular interface is the Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Camera Serial Interface issue 2, or CSI-2 as it is more commonly called.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Generate power with an FPGA and minimal analog circuitry
https://www.edn.com/design/integrated-circuit-design/4461354/Generate-power-with-an-FPGA-and-minimal-analog-circuitry?utm_source=Aspencore&utm_medium=EDN&utm_campaign=social
This article will get you going with a minimalist/simple approach to switching power supply design and describes several methods of generating power by utilizing FPGA resources and minimal analog circuitry.
Using FPGAs to design power supplies is overkill, unless you are using it for educational purposes. But if you have some portion of an FPGA left over to perform some useful function, it is practically free, and you can use the most expensive FPGA for this task without any guilt.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Tomu FPGA: An FPGA That Fits in Your USB Port
https://blog.hackster.io/the-tomu-fpga-an-fpga-that-fits-in-your-usb-port-1b09560b5541
Just under a year ago, Tim Ansell released the Tomu — a tiny Arm microcontroller board that fit inside your USB port.
The Tomu FPGA is based on a Lattice iCE40UP5K with 5k LUTs and DSP tiles, along with 128KB of RAM and 2MB of Flash. It also has a single RGB LED, and like the original Tomu, two capacitance touch buttons, plus it still fits inside your USB port.
the Tomu FPGA has a fully open source toolchain. Capable of running a soft RISC-V core, it is completely compatible with FμPy which is a MicroPython port to run on FPGA
https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/tomu-fpga
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Feather-Compatible FPGA Board Running a RISC-V Core with LoRaWAN
https://blog.hackster.io/a-feather-compatible-fpga-board-running-a-risc-v-core-with-lorawan-848d6257aa88
a new board ties four of the major trends together. An FPGA board running a soft RISC-V core, with onboard LoRaWAN, in a Feather form factor.
board is based on a Lattice Semiconductor ICE40 UltraPlus FPGA running a soft RISC-V core from the internal 128KB SRAM.
On the flip side of the board is a HopeRF RFM95W wireless module
The board is equipped with a Bosch BMP680 environmental sensor — a combined gas, pressure, humidity, and temperature sensor — a light and colour sensor, an accelerometer, and what looks to be a microphone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
First Thoughts on the iCEBreaker FPGA
https://blog.hackster.io/first-thoughts-on-the-icebreaker-fpga-8e187fe6596d
This year has seen the coming of age of the FPGA board. Driven, amongst other things, by the availability of an open source toolchain for the Lattice family of FPGA chips, the long standing problems holding back widespread adoption of the FPGA in the community seem now to have gone away.
Tomi Engdahl says:
iCEBreaker, The Open Source Development Board for FPGAs
https://hackaday.com/2018/12/13/icebreaker-the-open-source-development-board-for-fpgas/
https://www.crowdsupply.com/1bitsquared/icebreaker-fpga
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Rise and Fall of Synthesis Bugs in Safety-Critical FPGAs
https://semiengineering.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-synthesis-bugs-in-safety-critical-fpgas/
How to create an implementation signoff flow proving that the final FPGA netlist is functionally equivalent to the RTL model.
Tomi Engdahl says:
An FPGA for DIY Electronics
https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/fpga-diy-electronics/79145038959945
The latest version of Arduino’s MKR (Maker) family development board, the Arduino MKR Vidor-4000, is a small-form-factor FPGA development platform.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Signal Analysis with the Cora Z7 & Octave
https://www.hackster.io/adam-taylor/signal-analysis-with-the-cora-z7-octave-ce4734
FPGAs / SoCs are great for signal processing. Let’s take a look at how we can implement a test platform for experimentation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Use the 8bitworkshop IDE to Design 8-Bit Gaming Platforms with Verilog
https://blog.hackster.io/use-the-8bitworkshop-ide-to-design-8-bit-gaming-platforms-with-verilog-7dfc12ea07cb
retro gaming has made a comeback over the last few years, and now you can design your own Bronze Age games with 8bitworkshop’s IDE with Verilog.
http://8bitworkshop.com/v3.3.0/?platform=verilog&file=clock_divider.v
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Source IDE for FPGAs as QtCreator Learns Verilog
https://hackaday.com/2018/12/29/open-source-ide-for-fpgas-as-qtcreator-learns-verilog/
Most commercial FPGA tools come with a heavy-weight IDE. The open source tools for Lattice (IceStorm) typically is driven by the command line or a makefile. Until now. [Rochus-Keller] released VerilogCreator which is a plugin for QtCreator.
even at this early stage the IDE does syntax coloring, tooltips, inline messages, and can analyze source code allowing you to cross-reference symbols as you’d expect.
We were impressed because as IDEs go, QtCreator is both useful and lightweight, two things that don’t go together for many similar tools. [FPGAwars] has had an IDE based on Atom (apio-ide) although it hasn’t been updated in nearly a year. IceStudio sees more updates, of course, but it isn’t so much an IDE as a GUI-based code builder.
VerilogCreator is a QtCreator based IDE for Verilog 2005
https://github.com/rochus-keller/VerilogCreator
Tomi Engdahl says:
Menta’s eFPGA IP Targets Exascale Computing
https://www.eeweb.com/profile/eeweb/news/mentas-efpga-ip-targets-exascale-computing
Menta has been selected by the European Processor Initiative as the sole provider of embedded FPGA IP for exascale computing machines.
Menta has been selected by the European Processor Initiative (EPI) as the sole provider of embedded FPGA intellectual property (IP). EPI comprises 23 partners from 10 European countries with the objective of co-designing, manufacturing, and bringing to market a system that handles the computing requirements of exascale machines.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MicroZed Chronicles: xfOpenCV & HLS
https://blog.hackster.io/microzed-chronicles-xfopencv-hls-122093176723?fbclid=IwAR2V8zl5QUwo1WKkMXW54cwzOSBI8Yf-KzQotlPIOaCI_Yy7lIM7_fqvfXc
If you are using the Zynq or Zynq MPSoC for image processing you will be aware we can use the xfOpenCV libraries. These libraries allow us to accelerate OpenCV image processing functions from the Processing System (PS) into the Programmable Logic (PL) seamlessly.
https://github.com/Xilinx/xfopencv
Tomi Engdahl says:
47) Getting started with FPGA’s using iCEBreaker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5HRhCOaTkw
iCEBreaker dev kit based around the Lattice ICE40 FPGA. This is at the date of this video release, an active Crowd Supply campaign
Hopefully I’ll integrate it into some upcoming projects. I had hoped to get into the Verilog code a little bit, but I think that’ll be for a separate video; This one was getting a bit long winded, so stay tuned. Thanks for watching!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Xilinx sends lawyers after an engineer teaching FPGA programming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swVuqG9-H0E
Before Christmas I received an email from Xilinx lawyers. Wow, I do not have words on Xilinx behavior. They do not even bother to answer my emails and explain the situation.
Comments:
I’m playing with Altera/Intel, and I have been looking into Lattice and Xilinx. Thanks for helping me make an easy decision.
The amateur, everyday hobbyist is likely to be the next generation electrical engineer. Limiting our resources and exposure to a product is counterproductive
There’s plenty of other FPGA fish in the sea. Move over to another FPGA company. They will get the message soon enough.
I personally hate all Xilinx products. But unfortunately in my work place, I have to work with Xilinx chips. I am designing FPGA based boards and occasionally work with VHDL coding. The basic documentation of Xilinx products is very inadequate. Because they earn extra cash by selling their “true documentation”.
Xilinx is a jerk.
Altera is a jerk.
I favor the smaller ones : Lattice is OK, Microchip/Microsemi/Actel used to be my preferred (for personal reasons).
When I taught FPGA course at the university I used Altera. I realized a long time ago Xilinx is not worthy to show to students. They are frustrated that Altera now Intel makes FPGAs with smaller and smaller gate width.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2018/12/09/fpga-used-vhdl-for-fractals/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2018/05/19/parallel-programming-for-fpgas/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Video of the Arduino FPGA Board Demo at Maker Faire
https://hackaday.com/2018/05/20/video-of-the-arduino-fpga-board-demo-at-maker-faire/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2018/05/05/hardware-acceleration-in-the-cloud/
https://accelstore.accelize.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2018/06/05/pipelining-digital-logic-in-fpgas/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2018/07/15/interactive-mandelbrot-set-viewer-runs-on-fpgas/
Tomi Engdahl says:
MicroZed Chronicles: Building PetaLinux with No BSP
https://blog.hackster.io/microzed-chronicles-building-petalinux-with-no-bsp-11a9c74946f8
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://blog.hackster.io/microzed-chronicles-pin-planning-3d427d755350
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Tools & Learning> Products> Product Review
Xilinx Zynq UltraScale plus RFSoC: Gen 2 and Gen 3
https://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4461634/Xilinx-Zynq-UltraScale-plus-RFSoC–Gen-2-and-Gen-3?utm_source=Aspencore&utm_medium=EDN&utm_campaign=social