Programmable Logic Lessons

Description

Basic introduction into fpgas (and digital logic). This will have a lot of new stuff if you are a total begginer, you'll have to study abit to keep up :)

The plan is to have 3 introductory sessions, and then get into more hands on things. Hopefully we'll have our own (tiny and minimal) working cpu by the end of this !

The schedule will be adapted as we go on -- this is a rough plan

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

• Basic understanding of programming
• Basic knowledge of git (http://githowto.com/ can help you, we'll use git for examples and collaborating)
• Github account (We'll host our stuff there)
• A laptop (We do have some some spare computers in hackerspace, but you'll need to work on your own at home)

Doodle pool for date selection

http://www.doodle.com/yp99tnvzvq7ygwmy#table -> Begining Tuesday, May 28, 2013 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM, and generally Tuesdays 7 - 9

Schedule

[electronics recap]

• Binary system
  • What/How/Why, notations, formats -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_numeral_system
• Bool algebra
  • Basic stuff -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_algebra
• Basic constructs
  • Gates, Adders, Mult, Mux, flip flops -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_gates, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplexer, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-flop_%28electronics%29, ...
• PLD Techonologies
  • What for, how do they work, etc -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_logic_device, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-programmable_gate_array
  • Typical design workflow

Tooling, VHDL/Verilog basics

• Xilinx tooling (we'll use it)
  • http://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.html/content/xilinx/en/downloadNav/design-tools.html (*ISE*, _not_ Vivado)
• VHDL & Verilog introduction
  • Design goals, short history
• Verilog syntax & examples
  • We'll do some hands on basic stuff on our h/w !

More complicated structures

• More digital design stuff
  • Clocked vs clockless/asynchronous design
  • Clock domains, etc
  • Buffers, fifo, pipelines, etc
  • We'll Implement something relevant to avoid too much boring theory

Computer architecture

• Introduction
  • Buses/Protocols, basic design ideas
  • how is cpu design done
  • What are SoCs
  • Emulation/simulation
• Think together a custom, minimal SoC
  • We'll actually implement this later on :)

Computer architecture, part 2

• More work on the design we'll have
  • Implement it in software, see what tools are needed etc
  • Break it in blocks so we can work on the verilog part

Computer architecture, part 3

• Implement the design in verilog
• Explore perfomance/cost/etc
  • Let's make something fun with it -- perhaps a tiny brix clone or smth ?
• General info about more complex cpu designs (closer to the curren generation of cpus) and about gpu/stream processing
• General talk about sharing/working with open source hardware
  • http://opencores.org/, etc

Hardware

Papilio One - 500K - https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11158

• Xilinx Spartan 3E/500K gates

Atlys - Spartan6 - http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,836&Prod=ATLYS&CFID=1733993&CFTOKEN=46850973

• has cute hdmi output

Related material

• http://www.doe.carleton.ca/~jknight/97.478/PetervrlK.pdf (Verilog introduction)
• http://hamsterworks.co.nz/mediawiki/index.php/FPGA_course (VHDL, we'll actually do verilog though)

Useful Links

• http://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.html/content/xilinx/en/downloadNav/design-tools.html (*ISE*, _not_ Vivado)
• https://github.com/skmp/tsc8 (A tiny cpu I implemented in vhdl a long time ago)
• http://opencores.org/ (Lots and lots of code you can stare at)

Contact

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