Barebone FPGA development - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: jimon
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2015, 08:49:47 am
content: FPGA itself is quite simple device, bunch of LUT's, interconnects, IO, etc (the only complication is scaling, they need to put many logic cells in a chip). But FPGA's IDE's are so big : Altera Quartus is sooo huge and bulky package with tons of stuff. Xilinx ISE also looks quite bulky (haven't tried it yet).What is the most simplest and barebone tools for FPGA development ? (Except for creating bitstream by hand ...) I want to be able to blink a LED without downloading 5+ GB of software tools ...

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2015, 09:56:27 am
content: The 'problem' is that these tools support a ton of different devices. AFAIK Xilinx ISE lets you choose which families you want to install so you can save a little there. Under the hood Xilinx still uses command line tools to do the actual routing. You could delete the IDE if you want and use the command line tools. I think you can wrestle Eclipse (for example) into Makefile based FPGA development environment.

author: ale500
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2015, 12:10:38 pm
content: Altera's Quartus comes also in tools+devices packages, as well as Lattice's. You may try an older version... (Lattice's ispLever shouldn't be that big...)

author: Wilksey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2015, 12:29:19 pm
content: Are you talking VHDL / Verilog input or schematic input?VHDL / Verilog, you can use Notepad++, you would still need to synthesise the HDL and program the chip though

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2015, 12:34:31 pm
content: Quote from: jimon on June 11, 2015, 08:49:47 amI've only used Xilinx. No way around it, you have to do the 5GB downloadsupport for every device is integrated in a single package, during install you can choose which ones you need so the install won't be as bigbut why does it matter if it is big?, it's 50cents of harddrive space

author: jimon
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2015, 10:05:49 pm
content: Quote from: Wilksey on June 11, 2015, 12:29:19 pmYes, I can edit VHDL / Verilog in any text editor, I more interested in command line tools for synthesis and programming.Quote from: langwadt on June 11, 2015, 12:34:31 pmBinary size doesn't really matter, I'm just looking for "arduino" in fpga world, there just too much stuff going on in current streamline ide's, and it's hard for a beginners to get a grasp of everything.In mean time I found thishttp://papilio.cc/Looks simple enough, wonder if their ide can be used for other boards.

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2015, 10:41:36 pm
content: Quote from: jimon on June 11, 2015, 10:05:49 pmXilinx and Altera both have command-line versions of their tools. But you still have to download the entire suite.QuoteIf you think it's hard to get a grasp of everything in the IDE, forget about doing it all from the command line.There is no "Arduino" in the FPGA world, and I don't see it happening. Look, the FPGA vendors are having a hard time maintaining their mainstream tools, and the trend what with SoCs like the Zync is for the tools to get more complex, not less.Look, the Arduino Uno is basically a simple 8-bit microcontroller with what's now a standard board pin-out and a simple IDE. The thing to note is that it is NOT made by Atmel. Atmel's boards are more complex, and they do provide a comprehensive development environment (Atmel Studio 6.2) and firmware framework (ASF). And yes, it's complex, in the same way that Xilinx ISE and Vivado are complex.You're looking for some group to come up with an Arduino-like IDE and "ecosystem" for Xilinx. This does not seem unreasonable. The group would need to define a board with peripherals and a "shield"-like peripheral interface, and then come up with some kind of IDE/platform which knows about the board and the shields and can generate code in some way. Then the easy part: taking all of that stuff generated by the IDE, boiling down to synthesizable VHDL, and then calling the command-line Xilinx tools. Obviously it requires an ISE or Vivado installation, but the user need not get into that.Obviously there's an itch waiting to be scratched. It's notmyitch, because my FPGA designs are for products, not for general-purpose boards, and also I am comfortable with the Xilinx tools. But why hasn't the community come up with something like this?

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2015, 10:47:10 pm
content: Quote from: Bassman59 on June 11, 2015, 10:41:36 pmWhy has no body come up with something like the Papilio Design Lab IDE? (http://gadgetfactory.net/learn/2015/05/15/designlab-make-a-custom-zpuino-system-on-chip-2/)However, you still need the Xilinx tools to generate the FPGA bitstream, unless you use one of the pre-built ones.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2015, 01:02:55 am
content: Quote from: jimon on June 11, 2015, 10:05:49 pmfor simple stuff ISE is straight forward;new project, choose the right part, add a file, write some verilog/VHDL, assign signals to pins, hit generate bitfile

author: slateraptor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2015, 07:07:48 am
content: Quote from: hamster_nz on June 11, 2015, 10:47:10 pmBecause the problem as applied to an FPGA's fabric is non-trivial and on the bleeding edge of research.EDIT: Whoa, YT video was spliced right into the post.Cleaned up...