yazici / wtfpga

2 hour crash course in FPGAs

WTFpga

2 hour crash course in FPGAs and Verilog

Purpose

The purpose of this workshop is to jumpstart people new to FPGAs, getting them to the point where they can understand and make minor changes to Verilog designs, and see the results on hardware.

When delivered as a workshop, laptops have Vivado preinstalled and the project preloaded so that attendees can get straight to toggling switches and flashing LEDs.

The scope is intentionally limited to make sure it's doable in a couple hours time, so that attendees don't need to make a huge time commitment to get a hands-on understanding of FPGAs and Verilog

What's not covered

To keep it simple, I skip over:

1. Toolchain Setup
2. Synchronous Logic
3. IP cores
4. Simulation
5. Testbenches

... and probably lots more things you'll want to be sure to learn more about once you get started.

Changes

Version 1.0 targeted a generic Xilinx XC3S200A FPGA board using Xilinx ISE tools. Posted 2014

Version 2.0 is significantly updated, targeting a Digilent Basys 3 board and Xilinx Vivado. Posted 2018

Version 3.0 targetting the iCEBreaker dev board and using fully open source sythesis flow. Posted late 2018

DIY

If you'd like to do the V3.0 workshop on your own, using the iCEBreaker dev board and tools, before you start, you'll need to:

1. Install icestudio, nextpnr-ice40, yosys. For the information on how to install them refer to http://www.clifford.at/icestorm/#install

2. Aquire a 1BitSquared iCEBreaker board and the iCEBreaker 7segment display and DIP switch PMOD boards. https://github.com/icebreaker-fpga/icebreaker https://github.com/icebreaker-fpga/icebreaker-pmod

3. Attach the 7 segment board to iCEBreaker port P1A, and attach the DIP switch board to iCEBreaker port P1B.

4. Walk through the pdf manual included. pdfbook2 --paper=letter --inner-margin=0 wtfpgamanual.pdf should prepare it for printing as a booklet if you prefer.

Derivative use

Please use and distribute this material! If you need a more permissive license let me know!