fpga

How to estimate FPGA utilization for designing a work a like core?

I was considering some older generation FPGA's to interface with a legacy system. So I want a good way of estimating how much space is necessary to replace an ASIC given its transistor count. Does Verilog versus VHDL affect the utilization? (According to one of our contractors it affects the timing, so utilization seems likely.) What...

Using XILINX XPS with Microblaze - quickest way to program the fpga

I'm designing a micro controller based around the microblaze microprocessor on a xilinx fpga. Most of the hardware setup is done. All I'm updating at this point is the c code to be run on the microblaze. Is there a way in XPS to not have to rebuild the entire project, just the c code portion. It takes around 20 minutes to rebuild the ent...

FPGA for 3d rendering/modelling

Hi, I am an experienced C#/.NET developer (actually this is all irrelevant because FPGA is like another level of complexity). While my level of ability is not expert like in C# as I still sometimes look stuff up (but not very often, though I struggle with some syntax/advanced concepts), my boss does FPGA and recommends I get involved (e...

TAP (Test Anything Protocol) module for Verilog or SystemVerilog

Is there a TAP (Test Anything Protocol) implementation for Verilog? It would be nice because then I could use prove to check my results automatically. Update: 10/9/09: It was asked why not use assertions. Partly TAP gives me some good reporting such as number of files and number of tests. It also can be used with smolder for reportin...

Experiences with Test Driven Development (TDD) for logic (chip) design in Verilog or VHDL

I have looked on the web and the discussions/examples appear to be for traditional software development. Since Verilog and VHDL (used for chip design, e.g. FPGAs and ASICs) are similar to software development C and C++ it would appear to make sense. However they have some differences being fundamentally parallel and requiring hardware ...

Getting started with FPGA programming.

I want to play around with FPGAs. I'm looking for advice getting on started. Can anyone recommend good FPGA boards that I easily start programming for? How much should I look at spending? Can I avoid buying a FPGA board now, and just emulate the code I write? Are there portability issues between different boards? What languages are ...

Do bitwise operations distribute over addition?

I'm looking at an algorithm I'm trying to optimize, and it's basically a lot of bit twiddling, followed by some additions in a tight feedback. If I could use carry-save addition for the adders, it would really help me speed things up, but I'm not sure if I can distribute the operations over the addition. Specifically if I represent: ...

Java GUI amd FPGA

Hi, I study on a robot simulator that written on Java environment.But sonar scan simulations and computational burden of some driven algorithms on robot drop my simulator's performance. So ı have decided to use fpga module and put the computational burden on it.I have spartan 3a development kit for this implemenatation. Does anyone ha...

Getting started with HDLs from regular programming

Hello, I've always kinda wanted to make my own microprocessor.. I've read http://stackoverflow.com/questions/632698/how-can-i-make-my-own-microcontroller . I tried multiple times to learn some Verilog and VHDL. But for the life of me I just can not get my head around the language styles. I come from a C/C++/C# background and have dabbed...

FPGA Programming and how does IP Core licensing work?

Hello, I have been looking into developing a hardware module for HD video capture. I an new to the whole thing so I looked around and found that I need an FPGA development board to test my design out and then may be deploy it through ASIC or FPGA itself. I found that people have already written cores in Verilog/VHDL which I can direct...

fpga: choosing c++ to program fpga

I keep hearing mostly from electrical engineers that C is used for fpga work. What about C++? Are there any disadvantages to using C++? I would think that the parallelism desired when programming for hardware would be better served by C++ more than C, no? Also what do I use after that to make compatible c++ with the hardware? ...

Resources for learning Verilog

I'm new to Verilog. Can someone suggest a learning resource, book, video, blog, anything that they had a good personal experience with and helped them learn it faster? If it helps, I have experience programming in several high-level languages, but have no experience programming in C. Thanks ...

What language to learn for microcontroller programming?

I'm getting into microcontroller programming and have been hearing contrasting views. What language is most used in the industry for microcontroller programming? Is this what you use in your own work? If not, why not? P.S.: I'm hoping the answer is not assembly language. ...

OpenSource FPGA Development

I want to pick up FPGA programming. I've heard all types of horror stories of proprietary tools. Is there any entirely open source tool chain available? If not, how should I learn this? My background: familiar with scheme, c++, assembly, mips architecture. Thanks! ...

Neural Network simulator in FPGA?

To learn FPGA programming, I plan to code up a simple Neural Network in FPGA (since it's massively parallel; it's one of the few things where an FPGA implementation might have a chance of being faster than a CPU implementation). Though I'm familiar with C programming (10+ years). I'm not so sure with FPGA development stuff. Can you prov...

using OpenGL ES on FPGA xilinx

Hi everybody! I want to know if it is possible to use OpenGl ES on Xilinx to developp a 3D application. thanks! ...

Comparing FPGA with ASIC design

Hi there, I have a fundamental question. I produced some FPGA image for some media application and now I would like to compare my results to the ones of ASIC implementation of the same algorithm in terms of performance & area. I have heard such a comparasion does not make sense since it is somewhat comparing apples and oranges. But I h...

verilog modelsim fpga

Sorry for Newbish question. I am trying to learn about FPGA programming. Before I spend $1K on a FPGA board: if I just want to learn Verilog, can I run it entirely in Modelsim? (I realize there are some timing issues that only show up in actual chips; but for learning syntax / style of coding / ...)_ Thanks! ...

Is FPGA course useful for a CS student?

I am a 3rd year computer science engineering student.Is it beneficial for me to go for FPGA course or seminar? ...

How difficult is it for an old-school programmer to pick up an FPGA kit and make something useful with it?

I'm an old, old, old coder. (How old? I've used paper tape in anger.) I've programmed in a lot of languages and under a lot of paradigms (spaghetti, structured, object-oriented, functional and a smattering of logical). I'm getting bored. FPGAs look interesting to me. I have the crazy notion of resurrecting some of the ancient hardw...