Reddit reviews Finite State Machines in Hardware: Theory and Design (with VHDL and SystemVerilog) (The MIT Press)

[part 3 of 3]

REGARDING ALT SOURCES FOR XILINX FPGA DEVELOPMENT BOARDS

Xilinx, Digilent and Zedboard aren’t the only sources for Xilinx development boards, not by a long shot. I was considering doing some Kintex or Virtex development for a supermassive parallel processor to solve a specific type of math problem. The Xilinx development board would have been USD$2,500 or so. That’s when I ran across Trenz Electronic GmbH (Germany) as another source, and they have a LEGO-like approach to having various IO boards onto which FPGA/SoC daughterboards can snap aboard. So you select the level of IO sophistication and form factor you want, and then what FPGA module to drive it with. For Artix-7 FPGA, the total cost is usually higher than equivalent Digilent or Zedboard boards. But for Kintex-7 or Virtex-7 FPGAs, the cost is often lower competitive equivalents. Worth checking out.

REGARDING INTEL (née Altera)If your desire it be most hirable, then yes: I would suggest purchasing a mix of development boards (if you have the budget) across at least Xilinx and Altera, and maybe Lattice for their great “less is more boards. I haven’t had time & budget to explore the Altera FPGAs and SoCs, but if I did I’d definitely be purchasing development boards through Terasic (Taiwan-based company) because they have the same lower-price, more marketable designs for boards as is true for Digilent (USA-based) with Xilinx chips.

[10] Terasic (English-language website):

https://www.terasic.com.tw/en/

REGARDING LATTICE

Last year I bought two small development boards from Lattice. I love these little boards which, like Digilent’s small 40-pin Cmod-A7 series, are great for those who love to tinker with FPGA-driven custom hardware designs. I love the idea that perhaps because Lattice are #3 in sales volume, they get the fact that you probably shouldn’t gouge folks for development boards. I first purchased an older (almost legacy) MachXO2-based development board (I forget the exact model) for $25 and then a newer MachXO3-based development board for $35, one from Lattice and the other from Digi-Key, as I recall. The big difference is how you want the bitcode stored: I chose the flash models over the alternative for the MachXO3.

These are teeny-tiny boards (roughly 3”x3” form factor) and are more like the Digilent Cmod-A7 except that they have four rows of 2x20 female headers on them as GPIO+power connectors for external hardware. I typically just install jumpers from the headers to my breadboards for projects. The margins would be too small for me to sell these alone, so I‘m thinking of listing each with a nice sized breadboard, jumpers and a bunch of RGB LEDs and 220Ω resistors as a “Lattice FPGA Development Starter Kit” for MachXO2 or MachXO3 designs. I don’t know what the price points would be, but that will all be figured out this coming weekend. I might also do the same with my Cmod-A7 boards to make them more attractive as well. I think I have four large breadboards in total, though I’ll probably skimp on the LEDs, resistors, and jumpers for the Cmod-A7 boards (and I might just list those by themselves to keep shipping costs to a minimum).

That’s really all I have to say other than to say I post quite often my thoughts about FPGAs to the @µCauliflowerBrewClub on FB, as I mentioned, and to Quora.com to answer questions there when I have time (because anything FPGA-related often requires a very detailed answer, as I’m overdoing here). I am only weeks in to Reddit and so I don’t know how much I’ll be posting about FPGA stuff here.

Finally, since I am a professional tutor of various technologies (including FPGAs), general math and science, should anyone want individual or group training on such things via group Skype video sessions, we can make that happen for as-needed or regular basis. FPGA/SoC designs have a tremendous learning curve associated with them, and even five years in I consider myself an intermediate, not expert, programmer and designer. Most recently I explored high-speed parallel adder circuits which was a lot of fun; ways of going wider than 32-bits to 64-bit or 128-bit adders/subtractors. I have fully scalable IP I hope release in 2019 into the public domain when I can document it which goes far beyond any free IP I’ve seen. Very proud of that, and that would be a great tutoring project to consider because switches+adders+LEDs or 7-segment outputs is a great entry-level project to tackle on ANY type of FPGA or SoC.

I’ll include contact info below, if anyone wants to snag the boards before I list them this weekend, or to inquire about FPGA tutoring or other subjects.

“Blind Man” Bert Sierra

The Kanamit Collective

Prescott, Arizona, United States

[email protected] [allow 2-3 days for replies]

(928) 458-5809 [24x7; no texts please]

@Bert.Sierra on Facebook

PS — Another good resource are books which focus on FPGA-specific topics like state machines, piplines, and so on. It can take time to detoxify your brain from thinking in sequential programming terms (which is partly why I am personally less interested in SoC development than pure FPGA designs). It can take a while to think purely in state machine terms, and also to deal with the various issues that arise as signals cross clocking domains which is something that can also trip up newbies if not properly trained on how to inject little synchronizer logic blocks. This is true even when switching from the asynchronous world of input buttons and switchs. I’ve been going over all my designs and inserting input synchronizers on switches and buttons (in addition to button debouncers, of course), and myriads of long-standing weirdnesses have disappeared as a result.

Here is a great book for getting on the state machine learning curve, with VHDL and SystemVerilog code snippets:

[11] “Finite State Machines in Hardware: Theory and Design (with VHDL and SystemVerilog)” — Volnei A. Pedroni — $45 ($25 from me; used, great condition, unmarked):

https://www.amazon.com/Finite-State-Machines-Hardware-SystemVerilog/dp/0262019663

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[end part 3 of 3]