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Digital Design for FPGAs, with free tools

Description

Tutorial of synthesizable digital systems design in FPGAs using ONLY free and open source tools. The Hardware descriptions in this tutorial will be in Verilog.

It is an incremental tutorial , in which concepts are introduced progressively, while being tested on real hardware. The circuits presented initially are not designed according to the usual design rules, but rather simplicity is emphasized. Then little by little, as the tutorial progresses, they are refined and improved.

The journey begins with the simplest circuit possible: a wire. And it ends with the design of a very simple microprocessor : MICROBIO

Community: FPGA-WARS

Join the FPGA-WARS group : exploring the free side for the latest news, questions, share and collaborate on the development of free reconfigurable hardware.

Repository

Repository with verilog code

Author

Juan González Gómez (Obijuan)

License

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Credits

  • Project icestorm, by Clifford Wolf and Mathias Lasser
  • Arachne-pnr, by Cotton Seed
  • BQ , for supporting this project from 2015-07-01 to 2016-04-14

Thanks

  • This tutorial would not have been possible without the incredible free tools of the Icestorm and Arachne-pnr project, by Clifford Wolf , Mathias Lasser and Cotton Seed . They represent a spectacular advance for the technological heritage of mankind. Thank you very much!
  • To BQ , to finance the material used in the tutorial. Thank you very much!
  • To Jesús Arroyo , for the incredible tools: icestudio and celery you are developing to make FPGAs easier to use Thank you very much!
  • To David Sánchez Falero , for teaching me how to highlight Verilog code in the github markdown :-) This has made the code much more readable! Thank you so much!
  • To Carlos García Saura , for the installation instructions of icestorm tools in Fedora. Thank you very much!
  • To Javibc (J Bc) , by the instructions to relaunch the udev when configuring the icestick ¡Muchas Gracias!
  • To David Cuartielles by the installer of free tools and makefile examples for the board with the FPGA ICE40HX8K. Thank you very much!
  • To Fernando Barcala (Barkalez) for his feedback on the problems doing the tutorial 1. This has improved the documentation. Thank you!
  • To Alberto Piganti (pighixxx) for doing the pinout of the icestick. Thank you!
  • To Cristóbal Bueno for his tests of icestorm toolchains for Linux-32bits. Thank you!
  • To Sebastián Gallardo For the test of the libusb in Windows 32-bits. Thank you!
  • To Carlos Diaz for the tests of the libusb in Windows 10 64-bits. Thank you!
  • To Pablo Cisneros (ZioGuillo) by the synthesis / download instructions in MAC. Thank you!
  • To Julian Caro for all the issues sent to improve this tutorial. Graciass!

FAQs

  • What is the difference between an FPGA and Arduino? Arduino's are a microcontroller, which are programmed. FPGAs are NOT PROGRAMMED, instead, they are configured to implement HARDWARE and are used to design circuits.

  • What does an FPGA do that an Arduino can't do? Many applications can be done either by software (programming) or by hardware. For example a counter. The difference is that in designing with hardware we get much higher speeds. In addition, the hardware can be "cloned" directly and operates in parallel. Whereas having several things running in parallel in software is not trivial.

  • Why Verilog and not VHDL? Verilog is the language that is supported by the icestorm project at the moment. But as it is a free project, the community will expand it and the VHDL will be supported sooner or later. As of today (Sep-2015), to work with free tools and FPGAs, you have to use Verilog

Update (August-2016) : The Yodl Project is implementing VHDL for the free Yosys synthesizer. It's still green, but VHDL support is on the way :-)

  • Where can I buy the IceStick -Icestick at Mouser -Icestick en LatticeUSA

  • I have done the Hello World tutorial but synthesizing the file does not generate a .bin , instead it's a .blif The .blif file is what is generated in the synthesis, after running the yosys program. However, to get the .bin you still have to execute more commands. All the commands to execute to get the .bin from .v in the first tutorial are:

$ yosys -p "synth_ice40 -blif setbit.blif" setbit.v
$ arachne-pnr -d 1k -p setbit.pcf setbit.blif -o setbit.txt
$ icepack setbit.txt setbit.bin

To make it easier, it is best to run the make sint command . To do this you have to clone the repository of the github tutorial, enter the working directory and execute make sint:

$ git clone https://github.com/Obijuan/open-fpga-verilog-tutorial.git
$ cd open-fpga-verilog-tutorial/tutorial/ICESTICK/T01-setbit/
$ make sim

NEWS

2016/12/29 : Clifford adds an example hello world for the Icezum Alhambra Alhambra inside the Icestorm project.

2016/12/28 : Clifford Wolf already has his Icezum Alhambra !. He received it from Ismael Olea, 33C3 in Hamburg. All our recognition of Clifford's work. And many thanks to Ismael for giving it to him :-)

2016/12/21 :

  • Delivered the 100 Icezum Alhambras (v1.1) of the first Lot! :-) #ElAlhambraRepairer can rest now
  • Julian Caro makes this epic video ( More information )

2016/12/10 : Activities in the Ourense MakersLab 2016 :

2016/11/18 : Talk: " Free FPGAs " in the Bilbao MakerFaire ( More information )

2016/11/09 : Talk: " Free FPGAs " at the Rey Juan Carlos University, fuenlabrada campus ( More information )

2016/11/05 : Activities at OSHWDEM 2016 of A Coruña , at the Domus Museum

2016/10/30 : Launched the Icezum Alhambra Peregrina, so that everyone can freeze with free FPGAs ( More information ) ( Google Docs )

2016/10/28 : Organized the 1st workshop on free FPGAs in Spain . Taught at the Technical School of Industrial Engineering, UPM ( More information

2016/10/24 : Talk: " Free FPGAs ", given in THE EVENT 2016, at the University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M) ( More information )

2016/10/20 : The Alhambra-led card is published: Peripheral with an LED, for the Icezum Alhambra, with printable PCB ( More information)

2016/10/18 : Podcast 97: Obijuan, free software to join you. Interview with obijuan in the Podcast of Programarfacil.com , by Luis del Valle

2016/10/02 : Clifford announces that it will begin reverse engineering the bitstream of Xilinx 7 Series FPGAs . It will take more than 1 year, but it is a very important milestone to increase the free FPGAs park ( More information )

2016/09/24 : Talk: "FPGAwars: Exploring the free side of FPGAs" given at Madrid Mini maker faire ( More information )

2016/09/23 : First talk given in Spain on free FPGAs. It was given at the ETSIIT of the University of Granada, organized by the Free Software Office of the University of Granada ( More information )

2016/08/23 : Videoblog 23: ACC: Apollo CPU Core. Announcement of the ACC project: implementation of a core core of the Apollo CPU in Verilog for free FPGAs ( VIDEO ) ( wiki )

2016/07/29 : Videoblog 22: Icezum Alhambra V1.0K World Heritage Edition ( VIDEO )

2016/07/28 : Icezum Alhambra V1.0K released! It has been created from scratch using only free tools, from our technological heritage

2016/07/07 : VHDL frontend for Yosys! Still green, but the community is already starting VHDL support on free FPGAs : https://github.com/forflo/yodl

2016/07/03 : Finished the phase of raising money for the crowdfunding of the manufacture of the Alhambra Icezum. We have already received the € 6,500 from the funders. Thank you very much to all of you for your help! List of all funders

2016/07/02 : Jesús Arroyo releases version 0.2.0-Beta1 of Icestudio. Publish this video showing the most relevant new features : code blocks and hierarchical design. Clifford Wolf echoes the news and tries it on a icestick :-) twitter post

2016/05/30 : The Icezum Alhambra schematic has been migrated to Kicad , a free electronic design tool ( repo )

2016/05/19 : The pinout of Icezum Alhambra by Maestro Piganti has been migrated to SVG format with Inkscape so that anyone can modify or use it easily ( repo

2016/05/18 : Objective achieved . The 100 Icezum Alhambras are now in full swing. We started the process for the manufacture of the first 100 units!

2016-05-04 : We already have the pinout of the card Icezum Alhambra , made by Alberto Piganti. Thanks!

2016-05-01 : Help is requested on the list of FPGA-wars for the financing of the manufacture of 100 cards Icezum Alhambra. A mini-crowdfunding ( Original message in the group )

2016-04-29 : Platformio 2.9.0 already supports free FPGAs :-)

2016-04-20 : FPGAwars organization in github. All repos related to free fpgas have been transferred to that organization. BQ no longer continues with free FPGAs

2016-03-24 : Cross-compilation of icestorm tools for Ubuntu Phone ( VIDEO )

2016-03-22 : Document with the synthesis instructions for Mac , created by Pablo Cisneros (ZioGuillo). Thank you!

2016-03-15 : Locomotion of a worm-like modular robot using hardware oscillators in a FPGA, with the IceZUM card ( VIDEO )

2016-03-12 : Videoblog on the IceZUM Alhambra ( VIDEO )

2016-03-09 : Post on Hackaday on the IceZUM Alhambra.

2016-03-08 : We already have 5 prototypes of the IceZUM Alhambra running! ( Image ). We have done some tests that you can see in these videos

2016-03-05 : First downloaded bitstream on the IceZUM Alhambra card! :-) The board works. In addition, the tests have been done from Windows, using icestorm MULTIPLATAFORMA Double validation! ;-) ( Image )

2016-03-04 : First version of icestorm MULTIPLATAFORMA . You already have cross-compiled tools for Mac and Windows. Initial tests ok

2016-03-03 : We received the first PCBs from the Icezum Alhambra . They are in Pinos del Valle, in Granada ( Image )

2016-02-29 : The version of the icezum card that is coming has been christened Icezum Alhambra. The name was suggested by Sebastian Gallardo in this post from the FPGA-wars list

2016-02-28 : Cross-compilation of the iceprog tool for windows. Cristóbal Bueno has reported the first tests of correct operation in Windows 10 64-bit

2016-02-26 : Clifford launches version 0.6 of Yosys ( Download ). Soon it will be packaged for ubuntu and its installation will be trivial

2016-02-25 : Cross-compilation of icestorm tools for Linux-32-bit . The packages are generated and can be installed directly from Apio. Cristóbal Bueno , from the FPGA-wars list, is in charge of making the tests. Thank you!

2016-02-23 : Icestudio is published in hackaday :-)

2016-02-19 : Icezum card published in github. Designed by Eladio Delgado . Yesterday they were sent to manufacture the first 5 pcbs. It is a coach card like the icestick but shaped like BUM ZUM, which is in turn as an Arduino one

2016-02-08 : Alberto Piganti (pighixxx) has done the pinout drawing of the icestick

2016-02-06 : Videoblog 15: Visual hardware programming in free FPGAs

2016-02-04 : More improvements in icestudio , by Jesús Arroyo : ( VIDEO ) ( VIDEO )

2016-02-02 : First test of icestudio , designed by Jesús Arroyo : Graphic logic blocks converted to json, from there to verilog, and synthesized and loaded in the FPGA, through platformio: ( VIDEO )

2016-01-31 : First platformio + FPGA model , used since Atom ( VIDEO ). Developing hardware now is a lot easier. You no longer need to use the console and make ;-)

2016-01-28 : Starting to support lattice FPGA ice40 in Platformio : Platformio + FPGA

2016-01-24 : Simplez documenting and with improvements: ( VIDEO )

2016-01-12 : Jesús Arroyo replicates the Clifford examples from the 32CCC in our icoboard, and creates new examples that go up to this repository in github

2016-01-11 : We received the icoboard card donated to us at 32CCC, which was attended by Victor Diaz. Thank you very much! :-)

2016-01-02 : David Cuartielles creates an installer to facilitate the installation of all free tools to work with FPGA (on Ubuntu / Debian systems)

2015-12-31 : Pull request from David Cuartielles to repo of the tutorial. Added a new makefile to support the ICE40HX8K lattice board.

2015-12-30 : We received two ICE40HX8K lattice board cards, purchased at MOUSER. They have the FPGA HX8K lattice, with 8 times the size of the HX1K of the icestick. In this can already be synthesized a 32-bit risc-v processor (not yet tested)

2015-12-27 : Clifford gives the lecture "A Free and Open Source Verilog-to-Bitstream Flow for iCE40 FPGAs" in the 32nd edition of the Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg. All material is published on his website. In the demo they use an HX8K FPGA on the icoboard with a 32-bit risc-v processor synthesized using free tools. Víctor Díaz who is there knows Clifford, and this one gives him an icoboard to give it to obijuan :-)

2015-12-08 : Found the solution to a bug in iceprog: Now download times on the icestick are always less than 3 seconds !!! Clifford integrates the official repo almost instantly. The development cycle is now much faster

2015-12-04 : The FPGA-WARS group is created . It is officially announced on clonewars

2015-12-01 : Dinner of David Cuartielles of Arduino.cc and Rodrigo of the Prado and Juan González of BQ, in Madrid. We talked to David about the new ecosystem of free FPGA tools and the possibility of collaborating together

2015-11-26 : First version of the SIMPLEZ educational processor synthesized in the icestick, executing a program that shows a sequence by the leds: Repo

History

2015-11-20 : Finished the last chapter of the tutorial (30)

2015-10-21 : Imperial March plays on the icestick. I'm sending this video to Clifford. I also tell him that I am working on these tutorials. He likes the idea and publishes the link of the tutorials on the icestorm website :-)

2015-08-12 : First contact with Clifford Wolf (the author of the icestorm project). I send him an email thanking him for the project. He answers.

2015-08-10 : Returned to Madrid, although still on vacation. I passed by BQ to pick up an icestick. I achieved a historic milestone: I downloaded my first verilog design to the fpga, using free tools !!! A "hello world"" program that lights a led !!!!! :-) I start this wiki to do the tutorials as I'm learning.

2015-08-05 : The two icestick packages are received at BQ (And I on vacation with the SAV butt !!!!)

2015-08-03 : Jesús Arroyo buys 2 icesticks cards directly from Lattice, for the department of innovation and robotics of BQ

2015-07-31 : First tests. Installed the entire tool-chain of icestorm web in a ubuntu 15.04. It works!. All test examples I upload to this repo . The SAV shoots me. I'm going on vacation (no internet for 10 days). I take PDFs with verilog manuals to read and learn

2015-07-30 : I finish the second season of the Freecad tutorials. I can already use it with FPGAs!

2015-07-04 : I begin to write the Notes on free FPGAs in the wiki, to gather information. I still can not evaluate anything because first I have to finish the Freecad season 2 tutorials. Until I finish one thing I can not start with the next

2015-07-03 : Another post in hack-a-day . I get shot SAV (live anxiety syndrome)

2015-05-29 : The news comes out in a hack-a-day post. I learn of its existence through this post and I begin to evaluate the tools (obijuan)

2015-05-27 : The icestorm project reaches the first big milestone: They already have a workflow that works completely using only free tools

Compilation of Links

Tools used for the preparation of this tutorial

Inkscape, 0.91: For the figures (All of the figures source files in .SVG are in the repository)

Gimp: Retouching and processing of photos

Operating System : Ubuntu GNU / Linux 16.04

Bibliography

  • "Digital Design, An Embedded Systems Approach Using Verilog". P. Ashenden. 2007. It is a reference book of digital design using hdl languages

Next

FPGA Libres: [Wiki] [Repo]

Inicio (EN)

Capítulos

0 You are leaving the privative sector (EN)
1 ¡Hola mundo! (EN) (RU)
2 De un bit a datos (EN)
3 Puerta NOT (EN)
4 Contador de 26 bits (EN)
5 Prescaler de N bits (EN)
6 Múltiples prescalers (EN)
7 Contador de 4 bits con prescaler (EN)
8 Registro de 4 bits (EN)
9 Inicializador (EN)
10 Registro de desplazamiento (EN)
11 Multiplexor de 2 a 1 (EN)
12 Multiplexor de M a 1 (EN)
13 Inicializando registros (EN)
14 Registro de N bits con reset síncrono
15 Divisor de frecuencias
16 Contador de segundos
17 Generando tonos audibles
18 Tocando notas
19 Secuenciando notas
20 Comunicaciones serie asíncronas
21 Baudios y transmisión
22 Reglas de diseño síncrono
23 Controladores y autómatas finitos
24 Unidad de transmisión serie asíncrona
25 Unidad de recepción serie asíncrona
26 Memoria ROM
27 Memoria ROM genérica
28 Memoria RAM
29 Puertas triestado
30 Hacia el microprocesador y más allá

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