FPGA

363 Articles

A Really Low Level Guide To Doing Ethernet On An FPGA

August 14, 2024 by 7 Comments

With so much of our day-to-day networking done wirelessly these days, it can be easy to forget about Ethernet. But it’s a useful standard and can be a great way to add a reliable high-throughput network link to your projects. To that end, [Robert Feranec] and [Stacy Rieck] whipped up a tutorial on how to work with Ethernet on FPGAs. 

As [Robert] explains, “many people would like to transfer data from FPGA boards to somewhere else.” That basically sums up why you might be interested in doing this. The duo spend over an hour stepping through doing Ethernet at a very low level, without using pre-existing IP blocks to make it easier. The video explains the basic architecture right down to the physical pins on the device and what they do, all the way up to the logic blocks inside the device that do all the protocol work.

If you just want to get data off an embedded project, you can always pull in some existing libraries to do the job. But if you want to really understand Ethernet, this is a great place to start. There’s no better way to learn than doing it yourself. Files are on GitHub for the curious. Continue reading “A Really Low Level Guide To Doing Ethernet On An FPGA” →

What Is SystemVerilog, Really?

August 10, 2024 by 7 Comments

[Mark] starts a post from a bit ago with: “… maybe you have also heard that SystemVerilog is simply an extension of Verilog, focused on testing and verification.” This is both true and false, depending on how you look at it. [Mark] then explains what the differences are. It’s a good read if you are Verilog fluent, but just dip your toe into SystemVerilog.

Part of the confusion is that until 2009, there were two different things: Verilog and SystemVerilog. However, the SystemVerilog 2009 specification incorporates both languages, so modern Verilog is SystemVerilog and vice versa.

Continue reading “What Is SystemVerilog, Really?” →

Making USB Blaster Clones Work For Linux

July 29, 2024 by 4 Comments

The last time we checked in with [Downtown Doug Brown], he had some cheap Altera USB Blaster clones that didn’t want to work under Linux. The trick at that time was to change the device’s 24 MHz clock to 12 MHz. This month, he’s found some different ones that don’t work, but now the clock change doesn’t work. What’s the problem?

He also picked up a Terasic clone, which does work on Linux and is considered, according to [Doug], the best of the clones. The units were superficially similar. So what follows is a lot of USB tracing and dumping of the CPLD chip’s configuration.

Continue reading “Making USB Blaster Clones Work For Linux” →

Is That A Large Smartwatch? Or A Tiny Cray?

June 21, 2024 by 6 Comments

While we aren’t typically put off by a large wristwatch, we were taken a bit aback by [Chris Fenton]’s latest timepiece — if you can call it that. It’s actually a 1/25th-scale Cray C90 worn as a wristwatch. The whole thing started with [Chris] trying to build a Cray in Verilog. He started with a Cray-1 but then moved to a Cray X-MP, which is essentially a Cray-1 with two extra address bits. Then he expanded it to 32 bits, which makes it a Cray Y-MP/C90/J90 core. As he puts it, “If you wanted something practical, go read someone else’s blog.”

The watch emulates a Cray C916 and uses a round OLED display on the top. While the move from 22 to 32 address bits sounds outdated, keep in mind the Cray addresses 64-bit words exclusively, so we’re talking access to 32 gigabytes of memory. The hardware consists of an off-the-shelf FPGA board and a Teensy microcontroller to handle mundane tasks like driving the OLED display and booting the main CPU. Interestingly, the actual Cray 1A used Data General computers for a similar task.

Of course, any supercomputer needs a super program, so [Chris] uses the screen to display a full simulation of Jupiter and 63 of its moons. The Cray excels at programs like this because of its vector processing abilities. The whole program is 127 words long and sustains 40 MFLOPs. Of course, that means to read the current time, you need to know where Jupiter’s moons are at all times so you can match it with the display. He did warn us this would not be practical.

While the Cray wouldn’t qualify as a supercomputer today, we love learning about what was state-of-the-art not that long ago. Cray was named, of course, after [Seymour Cray] who had earlier designed the Univac 1103, several iconic CDC computers, and the Cray computers, of course.

What’s The Difference Between Tang 9K And 20K (It Isn’t 11…)

June 6, 2024 by 18 Comments

[Grug Huhler] has been working with the Tang Nano 9K FPGA board. They are inexpensive, and he noticed there is a 20K version, so he picked one up. Of course, you’d expect the 20K board has a different FPGA with more gates than the 9K, but there are also a number of differences in the host board. [Grug] was kind enough to document the differences in the video below.

In addition to the differences, there’s a good demo of the boards hosting a system-on-chip design. The little DIP package is handy for breadboarding. All of the 20K pins are 3.3 V, according to the documentation. The 9K does have some 1.8 V pins. There are more external devices on the 20K board but that eats up more uncommitted pins. Depending on your design, that may or may not be a problem.

We keep meaning to pick some of these up to play with. The Verilog is easy enough, and the tools look adequate. If you need a refresher on Verilog, we have a boot camp for you that would probably port easily enough to the Tang system. We’ve been following [Grug’s] work on these chips lately, and you should, too.

Continue reading “What’s The Difference Between Tang 9K And 20K (It Isn’t 11…)” →

Use That One Port For High-Speed FPGA Data Export

June 1, 2024 by 7 Comments

There’s a good few options for exporting data out of FPGAs, like Ethernet, USB2, or USB3. Many FPGAs have a HDMI (or rather, sparkling DVI) port as well, and [Steve Markgraf] brings us the hsdaoh project — High-Speed Data Acquisition Over HDMI, using USB3 capture cards based on the Macrosilicon MS2130 chipset to get the data from the FPGA right to your PC.

Current FPGA-side implementation is designed for Sipeed Tang chips and the GOWIN toolchain, but it should be portable to an open-source toolchain in the future. Make sure you’re using a USB3 capture card with a MS2130 chipset, load the test code into your FPGA, run the userspace capture side, and you’re ready to add this interface to your FPGA project! It’s well worth it, too – during testing, [Steve] has got data transfer speeds up to 180 MB/s, without the USB3 complexity.

As a test, [Steve] shows us an RX-only SDR project using this interface, with respectable amounts of bandwidth. The presentation goes a fair bit into the low-level details of the protocol, from HDMI fundamentals, to manipulating the MS2130 registers in a way that disables all video conversion; do watch the recording, or at least skim the slides! Oh, and if you don’t own a capture card yet, you really should, as it makes for a wonderful Raspberry Pi hacking companion in times of need.

The 6809 Lives On In An FPGA

May 28, 2024 by 38 Comments

At one point, the Motorola 6809 seemed like a great CPU. At the time it was a modern 8-bit CPU and was capable of hosting position-independent code and re-entrant code. Sure, it was pricey back in 1981 (about four times the price of a Z80), but it did boast many features. However, the price probably prevented it from being in more computers. There were a handful, including the Radio Shack Color Computer, but for the most part, the cheaper Z80 and the even cheaper 6502 ruled the roost. Thanks to the [turbo9team], however, you can now host one of these CPUs — maybe even a better version — in an FPGA using Verilog.

The CPU may be old-fashioned on the outside, but inside, it is a pipeline architecture with a standard Wishbone bus to incorporate other cores to add peripherals. The GitHub page explains that while the 6809 is technically CISC, it’s so simple that it’s possible to translate to a RISC-like architecture internally. There are also a few enhanced instructions not present on the 6809.

In addition to the source code, you’ll find a thesis and some presentations about the CPU in the repository. While the 6809 might not be the most modern choice, it has the advantage of having plenty of development tools available and is easy enough to learn. Code for the 6800 should run on it, too.

Even using through-hole parts, you can make a 6809 computer fit in a tiny space.You can also break out a breadboard.