FPGA Page

Introduction

FPGA stands for Field-programmable gate array. I wish I had wrote this up last time but hey on the way now.

First Project

My first project was from Digikey videos [[1]] which I struggle with in several ways. So lets write them down so I do not forget

Python

We us apio which is a python apt to make things easy. It loads the tools required to build a binary.

mkdir <project_name>
cd<project_name>
virtualenv venv 
source venv/bin/activate

Install Apio

Install apio. He installed 0.6.3 but I mine worked on 0.9.5

pip apio

Before project A

Before creating the blink example we need to make sure we are configured for the correct board. For me this was the ice40up5k-b-evn which I believe it the marketing name. It was quite hard to track the chip down and therefore the pinout. I eventually found

• FPGAUG0200110.pdf which lists my board at the bottom once.
• iCE40UP5K-SG48 is the chip and listed under features
• iCE40UltraUltraPlusSG48PinMigration.xlsx is the pinout really poorly named
  

Here is the pinout

Before project B

We need to install gtkwave with

sudo apt install gtkwave

Fix up the tcl install as mine moaned about not have specific version. It first created a link for the /usr/local/lib with

sudo ln -s  /usr/share/tcltk/tcl8.6  /usr/local/lib/

Then changed the init.tcl

#package require -exact Tcl 8.6.14
package require -exact Tcl 8.6.12

Create project

So we create a project using the examples provide with this command

apio examples  -d icestick/leds

My default this creates a files called

• apio.ini
• led.pcf

The apio.ini contains the board and top module to use. For the board we need to fix this and we do so with

# To list the boards
apio boards --list
# And for us we use
apio init --board iCE40-UP5K

This then produces the following apio.ini file

[env]
board = iCE40-UP5K
top-module = main

We need to replace the main with the name of the first module which is leds

[env]
board = iCE40-UP5K
top-module = leds

Now we need to modify the project constraints file. This is a file which on the left has the name of the pin used in the project and on the right has you pin number. Because we used a icestick example the pins will be different. Here is the corrected file for the iCE40UP5K-SG48 based off the xls spreadsheet

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
#- Leds example for the iCEstick board
#- Constraint file (.pcf)
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# --  Pinout: https://github.com/Obijuan/open-fpga-verilog-tutorial/blob/master/tutorial/doc/images/icestick_pinout.png
# --  Guide: https://github.com/Obijuan/open-fpga-verilog-tutorial/blob/master/tutorial/doc/icestickusermanual.pdf

# ------------ User Leds ------------------------------------------------------
set_io  D1 23 
set_io  D2 25 
set_io  D3 26 
set_io  D4 27 
set_io  D5 32

Now we are ready. No idea what some of these commands do and will not doubt file this in when I understand. Maybe just the sim I struggle with

# Parse the syntax
apio verify
# Simulate with gtkwave
apio sim
# Build
apio build
# Upload
apio upload

And here is a picture for fun.

Design

Here is the flow for design.