FPGA

Stuff about VHDL

See VHDL

Hardware

• Info about Spartan 3E
• Info about the Papilio board I've bought
• FPGA Test Board

Choosing an FPGA

Xilinx

• Website: http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/fpga/
• Spartan 3a Starter Board: SPARTAN-3E, BASYS2, FPGA, EVAL BOARD (Board Guide) Spartan 3a user guide, Data Sheet
• examples
• Butterfly One: board with schematics. Docs at papilio (with eagle files), SparkFun page, forum, XC3S500E datasheet
• Xilinx constrants.ucf file info Constraints Guide
• programming (sending .bit file to FPGA) via xc3sprog?
• Free edition of software: ISE WebPACK

#Installing libXm.so.3:
sudo apt-get install libmotif3

#Set the env variables:
INSTALL_DIR=/opt

. $INSTALL_DIR/Xilinx/14.4/ISE_DS/settings32.sh
export XIL_CG_LOAD_ALL_FAMILIES=true
DISPLAY=:0

#starting the main app:
$INSTALL_DIR/Xilinx/14.4/ISE_DS/ISE/bin/lin/ise

#starting coregen:
$INSTALL_DIR/Xilinx/14.4/ISE_DS/ISE/bin/lin/coregen

Issues:

• When first starting ise, it will ask for a license by starting a browser (chromium on my system). But as it sets the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable to Xilinx-compiles stdc++ library, chromium-browser cannot start start. I fixed this with:

cd /usr/lib/chromium-browser
mv chromium-browser chromium_browser_
cat > crhomium-browser <<EOF
#!/bin/bash
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=
set > /tmp/set
/usr/lib/chromium-browser/chromium-browser_ "$@"
EOF
chmod a+x chromium-browser.

This will of cause stop working after the next update of chromium-browser.

• Coregen doesn't load the full IP library (or something). Fixed this with the XIL_CG_LOAD_ALL_FAMILIES=true environment variable above. If you don't do this, the IP Core generator gives these messages in the console:

ERROR:encore:372 - Failed to set default project options.
ERROR:sim:569 - Failed to set default project options.
ERROR:encore:268 - Project /home/joostje/VHDL/Ltest/coregen_xil_1hPILG.cgc could not be opened
ERROR:encore:312 - Couldn't create new project.

Lattice

• Lattice Website

Altera

• Altera Website
• Cyclone III datasheet (finally one I can somewhat understand)
• Free medium density FPGA Quartus II Web Edition Software (4GB..., linux link)

cd /tmp
wget -O 12.1sp1_243_quartus_free_linux.tar.gz "http://download.altera.com/akdlm/software/acdsinst/12.1sp1/243/standalone/12.1sp1_243_quartus_free_linux.tar.gz?None&fileExt=.gz"
cd ~
tar -xvzf 12.1sp1_243_quartus_free_linux.tar.gz
cd 12.1sp1_243_quartus_free_linux
TARGET=/opt/altera12.1sp1/
altera_installer/bin/altera_installer_cmd --all --target=$TARGET --source `pwd`
altera_installer/bin/altera_installer_cmd --install=devices --target=$TARGET --source `pwd` --web
#start it up:
/opt/altera12.1sp1/quartus/bin/quartus

• starter kit, User Guide

See Also

• Spartan 3E
• Papilio
• FPGA Test Board