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mavensilicon · 2 years ago

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An Introduction to SystemVerilog: Overview and Benefits

Are you looking to get up to speed with the basics of SystemVerilog? This introduction will provide a comprehensive overview of SystemVerilog and all its benefits. SystemVerilog is an incredibly powerful programming language and hardware description language (HDL) used for the verification, design, synthesis, emulation, and prototyping of digital circuits.

The language enables users to efficiently create intricate designs that can be tested quickly and accurately for verification purposes, as well as optimized for cost reduction when transferred into silicon.

Regardless of your previous experience level or coding expertise, this guide provides all the essentials needed to understand why so many people are drawn towards using SystemVerilog in their projects.

What is SystemVerilog?

SystemVerilog is an extension of Verilog, which was developed by Accellera to enhance the design, verification, and synthesis of digital circuits and systems. This language provides object-oriented programming features, constrained random testing, assertions, and coverage analysis. It has become a popular language for both design and verification of digital systems, due to its flexibility and functionality.

Evolution of Verilog to SystemVerilog

Verilog was enhanced to SystemVerilog to address the growing complexity of digital circuits and systems. SystemVerilog added features such as object-oriented programming, constrained random testing, assertions, and coverage analysis to improve design verification, modeling, and synthesis.

Features and capabilities of SystemVerilog

Some of the notable features and capabilities of SystemVerilog include:

Object-oriented programming (OOP) features, such as classes, objects, and inheritance, enable modular and reusable design structures.

Constrained random testing (CRT) allows designers to create random input stimulus while constraining the values to ensure proper functionality and performance.

Assertions and coverage analysis enable designers to check the correctness of their designs and ensure that they meet the desired functional and performance requirements.

Design hierarchy and interface modeling enable designers to organize and manage complex designs with multiple modules and interfaces.

Design reuse and system-on-chip (SoC) design capabilities facilitate the creation of complex designs with pre-designed components and IP blocks.

SystemVerilog also includes features for low-power design, testbench automation, and FPGA synthesis.

Advantages of SystemVerilog

Here are some advantages of SystemVerilog:

SystemVerilog code is more concise and requires fewer lines of code compared to Verilog, which can save time and reduce errors.SystemVerilog includes structures and enumerated types that provide a more scalable and efficient way to design and manage complex digital systems. Interfaces in SystemVerilog provide a higher level of abstraction and enable faster design iterations and easier reuse of IP blocks.SystemVerilog is widely supported in electronic design automation (EDA) tools, including Vivado synthesis, which makes it easy to synthesize and implement designs on FPGAs

SystemVerilog vs. Verilog

Verilog is a Hardware Description Language (HDL) used for modeling and structuring electronic systems, while SystemVerilog combines HDL and Hardware Verification Language (HVL) to facilitate modeling, designing, simulating, testing, and implementing electrical systems.

In Verilog, module-level testing is used for the testbench, while SystemVerilog utilizes class-level test benches for more advanced and efficient testing. While Verilog uses C and Fortran programming languages, SystemVerilog is a programming language that combines Verilog, VHDL, and C++. Verilog supports the datatypes Wire and Reg, whereas SystemVerilog includes enum, union, struct, string, and class datatypes, enabling more versatile modeling and verification capabilities.

In addition to the differences mentioned earlier, Verilog and SystemVerilog also differ in terms of programming paradigms and procedural blocks.

Verilog supports the structured programming paradigm, whereas SystemVerilog supports both structured and object-oriented programming paradigms, enabling more advanced and modular designs.

In Verilog, there is a single always block to implement both combinational and sequential logic. However, SystemVerilog has three procedural blocks, namely always_comb, always_ff, and always_latch, that provide more precise control over logic implementation.

Verilog is based on a hierarchical module design, while SystemVerilog is based on classes that provide more sophisticated design and verification capabilities.

Conclusion

SystemVerilog is an incredibly powerful and efficient tool for those wishing to develop digital designs quickly and reliably. Its encapsulation of VHDL and Verilog properties in one language makes it a necessary addition to any collection of digital design tools.

The interface options, including the command line, graphical user interface, as well as self-verification facilities will empower users with greater flexibility as well as a sound verification process. With such a comprehensive package, it is no surprise that SystemVerilog has become so popular in the design world.

Get ahead of the game with SystemVerilog today – we at Maven Silicon are here to help you along your learning journey! Whether you’re just starting out or already familiar with SystemVerilog, contact us today to get started on our SystemVerilog tutorial.

With us, by your side, you’ll soon be confident enough to tackle more complex projects with ease. Don't wait - take the first step now and explore what SystemVerilog can do for you!

#SystemVerilog

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anantradingpvtltd · 2 years ago

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Price: [price_with_discount] (as of [price_update_date] - Details) [ad_1] Master the art of FPGA digital system design with Verilog and VHDLThis practical guide offers comprehensive coverage of FPGA programming using the two most popular hardware description languages―Verilog and VHDL. You will expand your marketable electronic design skills and learn to fully utilize FPGA programming concepts and techniques. Digital System Design with FPGA: Implementation Using Verilog and VHDL begins with basic digital design methods and continues, step-by-step, to advanced topics, providing a solid foundation that allows you to fully grasp the core concepts. Real-life examples, start-to-finish projects, and ready-to-run Verilog and VHDL code is provided throughout. • Concepts are explained using two affordable boards―the Basys 3 and Arty • Includes PowerPoint slides, downloadable figures, and an instructor's solutions manual • Written by a pair of experienced electronics designers and instructors ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1259837904 Publisher ‏ : ‎ McGraw Hill; 1st edition (5 October 2017) Language ‏ : ‎ English Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781259837906 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1259837906 Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 903 g Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 19.3 x 2.54 x 24.13 cm Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ USA [ad_2]

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preemploymenttest · 2 years ago

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How to Hire a Software Developer

Hiring a software developer is no easy task. There are thousands of talented developers out there looking for jobs. How do you choose from them? Software development has become an integral part of our lives. From mobile apps to web applications, almost every aspect of our daily life involves some sort of software. The demand for skilled software engineers is growing at a rapid pace. Learn more: https://blog.hirenest.com/a-guide-on-how-to-hire-a-software-developer/

It takes time and effort to hire a good software engineer. If you don’t get it wrong, hiring a great developer can be rewarding. In order to ensure you hire the right person, follow these steps.

Step 1: Understand what skills and traits you want in a candidate. This will help you narrow down your search and focus on those candidates who match your requirements.

Step 2: Find a job board where you can post your job ad. Posting a job ad on a job board allows potential applicants to find your job opening.

A career in software engineering requires a bachelor's degree in computer science or information systems. Most employers prefer candidates with experience in programming languages like Java, C#, Python, Ruby, PHP, JavaScript, etc.

What is a Software Developer?

A software developer creates applications using computer languages like Java, C#, Python, PHP, etc. They work closely with business analysts, project managers, database administrators, and others to develop solutions that solve problems. You can find out more in our article: https://blog.hirenest.com/a-guide-on-how-to-hire-a-software-developer/

The job outlook for software developers is expected to grow by 20% between 2014 and 2024. This growth is due to increased demand from companies looking to innovate new products and services. Companies are increasingly turning to mobile apps and cloud computing to improve productivity and increase customer satisfaction.

What are the types of software developers?

The most common type of developer is the front end developer who creates user interfaces (UIs) and web pages. A back end developer writes code behind those UIs and web pages. They may write server side scripts or they may work directly with databases.

Front end development requires skills like HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and jQuery. Back end development requires skills like PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, C#, and SQL.

Software engineers build applications using programming languages. Some of the most popular programming languages include:

Javascript, Python, Java, C++, C#, Objective-C, Swift, Go, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Haskell, Scala, Clojure, F#, Erlang, Lisp, Prolog, Visual Basic.NET, Delphi, Pascal, Ada, COBOL, Fortran, Assembly Language, BASIC, Cobol, PL/1, Tcl, VHDL, Batch Scripting, Shell Scripting, Bash, and many others.

In addition to being able to program in one language, it's important to know at least two different ones so you can switch between them easily. This will help you become familiar with new technologies and keep yourself from getting stuck in a rut.

Why Hire Top Developers?

The best developers will not only understand what you want but they will know how to build it. They will have experience working with different technologies and languages, and will be able to quickly adapt to new challenges.

The first step is to find out if any of your current team members are capable of building this feature. If so, great! But if not, then you should start looking outside of your company. There are many freelance web development agencies who specialize in custom software development. These companies typically offer hourly rates and charge by project. Some of them may even work on retainer contracts where they provide ongoing maintenance services.

Why hiring a good developer is challenging?

The most common reasons why developers fail at building software are lack of experience, poor communication skills, and not having enough resources.

I am sure you know what it means to hire a developer but still, here we will discuss some points which may help you to find the best one.

There are many ways to develop software. It depends upon the type of project and requirements. In this article, we will discuss three different approaches to build software. They are Agile, Waterfall and Spiral Development.

Software development life cycle (SDLC) is the process of developing a product from its inception through delivery. SDLC consists of four phases: Requirements Gathering, Analysis & Design, Implementation and Testing. Each phase has its own set of activities and deliverables. These activities are performed by various groups within the company like Product Owner, Developers, Testers etc.

A software development team usually comprises of several people who work together to complete a particular task. This team includes a Project Manager, Team Lead, Scrum Master, Programmer, QA Analyst, UI Designer, UX Designer, Business Analyst, Customer Support Engineer, Technical Writer, Content Developer, and so on.

Conclusion

The first thing to consider when hiring a software developer is whether he or she has experience with your industry. If you're looking for someone to build a website, then you want someone who's familiar with web development. If you need help building mobile apps, look for someone who knows about app development.

A good programmer will not only know the basics of programming languages but also understand what makes them tick. They should be able to explain why certain code works the way it does, and they'll be able to tell you if something isn't working correctly. This means being able to read through code and figure out where things might go wrong.

The best programmers are those who are passionate about coding and enjoy solving problems. If you're looking for someone who's going to spend all day every day writing code, then this job probably isn't for you. But if you want someone who enjoys coming up with new ideas and solutions to complex challenges, then software development may be perfect for you. If you want to know more about A Guide on How to Hire a Software Developer, read this article: https://blog.hirenest.com/a-guide-on-how-to-hire-a-software-developer/

#hirenest #bloghirenest #recruiting #hirenest blog #pre employment assessments #blog hirenest #hirenestblog #Software Developer #How to Hire a Software Developer #SDLC #Pre-Employment Screening Assessments #Pre-Employment Assessments #Pre-Employment Tests #Pre-Employment Testing #Pre-Employment Screening Tests

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learnandgrowcommunity · 1 year ago

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VHDL Basics : Insights Sequential and Concurrent Statements - No More Confusion [Beginner’s Guide]

In this comprehensive tutorial, we will cover everything you need to know about VHDL sequential and concurrent statements. Sequential statements allow us to execute code in a step-by-step manner, while concurrent statements offer a more parallel execution approach. Welcome to this beginner's guide on VHDL basics, where we will dive into the concepts of sequential and concurrent statements in VHDL. If you've ever been confused about these fundamental aspects of VHDL programming, this video is perfect for you. We will start by explaining the differences between sequential and concurrent statements, providing clear examples and illustrations to eliminate any confusion. By the end of this video, you will have a solid understanding of how to effectively utilize sequential and concurrent statements in your VHDL designs. This guide is suitable for beginners who have some basic knowledge of VHDL. We will go step-by-step and explain each concept thoroughly, ensuring that you grasp the fundamentals before moving on to more advanced topics. Make sure to subscribe to our channel for more informative videos on VHDL programming and digital design. Don't forget to hit the notification bell to stay updated with our latest uploads. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

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mavensilicon · 3 years ago

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What is the Scope of the VLSI Internship?

Have you ever Heard of VLSI? If not, you must if you are an aspiring engineering student or already studying or someone who has a deep interest in electronics, semiconductors, or chips. VLSI stands for Very-large-scale integration, and this term has been around since 1970. This field is related to integrated circuits and chips. Using VLSI, thousands of transistors get integrated into one chip. Microprocessors and chips are everywhere—mobile phones, electronics, computers, laptops, robots, and more use VLSI-based microprocessors. Therefore, the demand for professional; engineers under VLSI is enormous.

So, is it worth considering VLSI as a career? The answer is very much. Especially if you desire not to work in a routine engineering position, VLSI could be a good choice for you. VLSI professionals generally have electronics and electrical engineering backgrounds. However, software programmers designing VLSI chips use hardware description languages (HDLs) like VHDL and Verilog. Therefore, engineers from computer science backgrounds can make a terrific career if they have strong semiconductor physics and software programming knowledge. One can get an added advantage if the person is equipped with good communication skills.

What are the Career Options for VLSI Professionals?

There are multiple types of job roles under which VLSI

professionals can make their career, and below are the details:

1. VLSI design engineer:

As the designation name implies, the job duty includes design implementation. There are subdomains under design that have been created as per technologies subsets like DFT (Design for the test), PCB-Board Design, and Custom Design - Transistor level. Both front-end and back-end designers are in demand in design profiles.

2. Verification engineer in VLSI

A verification engineer does the job of performing verification during the whole manufacturing process of chips. They are responsible for ensuring that the design is working as per expectations and performing verification.

Subdomain of verification engineers:

● Hardware-software verification

● The product validation process, Behavioural modeling

● Acceleration / Emulation validation

3. Application engineer

In this role, you are responsible for interacting with customers and R&D. This work profile requires excellent interpersonal skills and extensive travel. This job would be a good fit for someone who is excellent at communication, a good presenter, able to build relationships, and knowledgeable about technology. Those with a keen interest in sales or marketing can quickly become marketing or sales executives and manger while working as VLSI application engineers.

Sub-domains of Application Engineers:

● Pre-sales Field Application Engineer

● Post-sales Engineer for Corporate Applications

● Consultants for application

4. CAD Engineer

CAD engineers is another profile for VLSI engineers. Under this profile, they need to perform different steps to automate parts of the design flow.

CAD engineers must be well-versed in the entire design process from specifications to delivery. It is essential to master EDA tools, scripts, and quality assurance for them.

5. Corporate Application Engineer (CAE)

CAEs write knowledge-based articles, create user guides, and conduct webinars as part of their responsibilities. Sales and marketing teams typically collaborate closely with them. The FPGA is a customized device. Good communication skill is another desired skill set in it.

Salaries of VLSI engineers:

The average annual salary of a VLSI engineer can be between INR 5 Lakhs to INR 6 Lakhs, depending upon the job role, experience, and exposure.

Why Take VLSI Internship?

Through VLSI internships, engineering students can acquire in-demand technical skills. Furthermore, it enhances professional ethics and the development of soft skills. It is an opportunity for students to learn about the real world of work in contrast to theory. It is even more critical for VLSI aspiring students since their job is highly technical and involves a lot of bits. if you are looking to earn VLSI internship in Bangalore, Maven Silicon VLSI Training Center is a perfect option.

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crestroncontrol · 4 years ago

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What's next for programmable devices?

Microprocessor and programmable good judgment design are converging, though they nonetheless require a common language. After certainly one of my engineers informed me that she had discovered a typo in her hardware, i idea simply how a ways design has come within the last 30 years and greater. Back then, the analog section of a machine consisted of discrete additives and op amps. The digital segment become carried out with either small-scale integrated (ssi) ics or custom common sense. I showed this engineer the little green logic template i used lower back then. She thought it changed into lovely. A time to break away

engineers seldom have to design with discrete additives anymore. Incorporated analog-to-digital converters (adcs), digitalto-analog converters (dacs), excessive-speed amplifiers, and transfer capacitor ics are now effectively available. The most in reality terrific advances, however, had been in digital design. The shortage of logic chip designers and the price of design has led to improvement along two one-of-a-kind avenues: microprocessors and programmable good judgment. Microprocessors brought about the need for fine and documentation metrics for design and implementation. The addition of digital peripherals resulted within the microcontroller. Armed with timers, counters, uarts, and other features, many entire virtual structures could be implemented with a unmarried chip. Adding a specialized peripheral containing a multiply-accumulator (mac) and the common sense needed to load and dump it yielded the virtual signal processor (dsp). Analog components inclusive of amplifiers, comparators, adcs, and dacs had been incorporated into microcontrollers to help construct a greater whole gadget. These, however, have been constant in overall performance. To fine-tune selection, exceptional chips offer distinct accuracy, resolution, and sample velocity additives. The mixture of different digital and analog peripherals has brought about a few microcontroller manufacturers to provide lots of various "flavors" in their elements. And whilst additional features had been required, they would should be applied with external hardware. Engineers have risen to the occasion with programmable good judgment, not handiest via progressive chip topologies however also the gear to apply them. Early programming become carried out by means of deciding on the fuses from a published fuse map. Palasm, the primary language to program logic devices, become used to explicit boolean equations. Gaining knowledge of the advantages of a commonplace language from software program, developers created verilog and vhdl. Designers now had a not unusual language to expand throughout exceptional platforms, and hardware might be developed the usage of a logical language. Additionally, chip manufacturers ought to move returned to developing chips instead of tools. These kind of gear no longer only can define a design but take a look at and confirm its performance as well. This has brought about virtual layout becoming a completely disciplined art. It is also pretty common for digital designers to cut up up their paintings, one doing the layout on one chip at the same time as the other creates the take a look at vectors. A time to convey it all collectively

combining the advantages of microcontrollers, programmable virtual good judgment, and analog peripherals, a definitely programmable reconfigurable system-on-a-chip (soc) would have programmable common sense to permit the design of specific virtual peripherals; a programmable language to guide layout and verification; the reprogrammability of fpgas and their risky configuration registers; permanent-configuration complex programmable-common sense device registers for instant hardware configuration at startup; a cpu with not unusual digital and analog peripherals; and analog circuitry that can be reconfigured to design analog and combined-signal peripherals. There have been several tries to feature programmable logic to microcontrollers. As transistor geometries get smaller and digital gates turn out to be towards unfastened, this ought to grow to be greater commonplace in soc architectures. Within the destiny, the predicament of choosing between everlasting and risky registers may be resolved with the aid of loading unstable registers right now with a everlasting rom base check in at startup, permitting hardware reconfiguration even as permitting short operation at startup. This will become viable as transistor geometries get smaller. A few examples already may be visible. As extra configurable analog is introduced to soc architectures, it'll need to function nicely inside cmos design procedures. Designs can have as little analog as viable, boasting put up-digital processing. This is the very definition of mixed-signal layout. Excessive-stage additives can then be carried out for unique resolution and sample pace with commutating amplifiers removing the dc offset and excessive 1/f noise (wander) inherent with cmos transistors. Such socs will begin with a cpu and specific hardware peripherals. However as transistors turn out to be loose, they may be implemented with programmable logic. Already, "softcore cpus" are applied with huge fpgas. And, there will want to be a design language. Analog layout is still very graphically oriented, and away is wanted on the way to define an analog system in a logical written remember. Read more

#reprogrammability #reblog #microcontroller

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nationin · 5 years ago

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A few more guides and tutorials for FPGA learners Some links that are useful for learning FPGA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like👍 ll comments📝 II Share📢 ➡️Keep Supporting🙏 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- . . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Follow (@nationin) for more stuff. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- . . _____________________________________________________ . #vivadoxilinx #xilinxfpga #xilinxindia #xilinxsdk #diyprojects #electronicsprojects #vlsi #electronics #xilinx #vivado #programming #hdl #verilog #vhdl #hdllanguauge #fpga #instagram #technology #vlsi #industry #tools #vivado #projects #start #engineers #engineering #life #electronics #engineers #vivado #zedboard #zedboards #verilog_programming #xilinx #xilinxfpga #xilinxindia #fpgaproject #fpgaboard #zedboards #electronicsprojects https://www.instagram.com/p/B9rSfCNH6nd/?igshid=kdlokuv846p1

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nox-lathiaen · 5 years ago

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Senior FPGA Engineer

Role Description: The Electrical Engineer will develop FPGA designs in VHDL for all major vendors and device families including: Xilinx, Microsemi (Actel), Intel (Altera) and Lattice designs are implemented using VHDL for the following applications: Radio Frequency (RF) and Electro-Optical (EO) DSP, controls, data links, and embedded processing. Designers work with circuit card designers and systems engineers to develop requirements, architect new parts, partition and perform code development, simulation, place and route. Designs are verified against requirements using both directed test and constrained random methodologies. Design support is expected from requirements definition through integration and test. Design documentation and configuration management are required. Job Responsibilities: Independently drive projects and execute to program schedules on time and budget Lead small teams and mentor junior engineers Demonstrate self-motivation, with little supervision required Design and deliver production quality FPGA releases from initial proof of concept up to production Work cooperatively with systems, hardware, software engineers, and program management to ensure product success Demonstrate the ability to architect FPGA-based systems to determine parts, interfaces, and Concept of Operations (CONOPS) Translate system level requirements into FPGA requirements Design and code in VHDL for reliability and maintainability Verify designs utilizing self-checking techniques with directed and constrained random tests, while tracking functional and code coverage Create complete documentation including requirements, verification plan, and user’s guides Support internal and external technical reviews Required Skills, Experience and Education: Required: This position requires the eligibility to obtain a security clearance. Except in rare circumstances, only U.S. citizens are eligible for a security clearance Bachelor of Science in Electrical or Computer Engineering A minimum of 4 to 8 years of experience with digital design and VHDL coding Expertise in Xilinx or Microsemi devices and flow tools Expertise in delivering FPGA solutions to system level applications Hands on experience with integration and debug Highly motivated, high performers with a strong desire to learn and contribute in a fast-paced team environment Excellent verbal and written communication skills Ability to perform work without appreciable direction Desired Qualifications: MS or Ph.D. in Electrical or Computer Engineering FPGA design expertise in one or more of the following areas: Expertise in radar processing techniques Expertise in image processing techniques for visual and infrared sensors Expertise in embedded systems design using ARM, Microblaze, or Nios processors Expertise in gigabit serial interfaces and multi-gigabit transceivers (MGTs) Expertise in constrained random verification in UVM using System Verilog Expertise in verification utilizing emulation platforms, such as Veloce Knowledge of C programming and scripting languages such as Perl or Python Experience modeling algorithms and applying fixed-point analysis and conversion of floating point algorithms FPGA design experience using a Linux based development environment Past experience in a leadership role such as team lead, technical lead, project lead, etc. Past experience estimating design work, developing schedules, and tracking progress against budget and schedule for FPGA designs For confidential, immediate consideration, please submit a professional copy of your resume (and not your Indeed profile template), as well as your salary range requirements and statement of interest. We are looking to begin interviewing qualified candidates for this role within the next 1-2 weeks. A comprehensive relocation is offered. US Citizenship is required for this role. Reference : Senior FPGA Engineer jobs Source: http://jobrealtime.com/jobs/technology/senior-fpga-engineer_i6431

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planetarduino · 6 years ago

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Hands-On with New Arduino FPGA Board: MKR Vidor 4000

Hackaday brought you a first look the Arduino MKR Vidor 4000 when it announced. Arduino sent over one of the first boards so now we finally have our hands on one! It’s early and the documentation is still a bit sparse, but we did get it up and running to take the board through some hello world exercises. This article will go over what we’ve been able to figure out about the FPGA system so far to help get you up and running with the new hardware.

Just to refresh your memory, here’s what is on the Vidor board:

8 MB SRAM

A 2 MB QSPI Flash chip — 1 MB allocated for user applications

A Micro HDMI connector

An MIPI camera connector

Wi-Fi and BLE powered by a U-BLOX NINA W10 Series device

MKR interface on which all pins are driven both by SAMD21 (32-bit ARM CPU) and FPGA

Mini PCI Express connector with up to 25 user programmable pins

The FPGA (an Intel/Altera Cyclone 10CL016) contains 16K Logic Elements, 504 KB of embedded RAM, and 56 18×18 bit HW multipliers

Sounds good. You can get more gory technical details over at Arduino and there’s even a schematic (.zip).

Documentation

Documentation is — so far — very hard to come by but the team is working to change that by the day. Here are the resources we’ve used so far (in addition to the schematic):

A getting started guide

A GitHub site with three repositories: An example for general I/O in the FPGA, an example for video, and a stripped down example that loads an unknown — possibly default — bitstream

A very generic document about FPGA coding

The forum for the MKR 4000

In addition, Arduino just released an example FPGA project for Quartus. I’ll explain what that means in a bit.

Get Up and Running with the Arduino Desktop IDE

Despite the getting started guide, it doesn’t appear the libraries are usable from the cloud-based IDE, so we followed the instructions to load the beta board support for the MKR 4000 into our desktop IDE. Be aware that the instructions show the “normal” SAMD board package, but you actually want the beta which says it is for the MKR 4000. If you search for SAMD in the Boards Manager dialog, you’ll find it (see the second entry in the image below).

The libraries we grabbed as ZIP files from GitHub and used the install library from ZIP file option with no problems.

What’s the Code Look Like?

The most interesting part of this board is of course the inclusion of the FPGA which left us wondering what the code for the device would look like. Browsing the code, we were a bit dismayed at the lack of comments in all but the JTAG code. We decided to focus first on the VidorPeripherals repository and dug into the header file for some clues on how everything works.

Looking at VidorPeripherals.h, you can see that there’s a few interesting I/O devices include SPI, I2C, UART, reading a quadrature encoder, and NeoPixel. There’s also a few headers that don’t exist (and presumably won’t get the define to turn them on) so don’t get too excited by some of the header file names until you make sure they are really there.

Then we decided to try the example test code. The library provides a global FPGA object that you need to set up:

// Let's start by initializing the FPGA if (!FPGA.begin()) { Serial.println("Initialization failed!"); while (1) {} } // Let's discover which version we are running int version = FPGA.version(); Serial.print("Vidor bitstream version: "); Serial.println(version, HEX); // Let's also ask which IPs are included in this bitstream FPGA.printConfig();

The output of this bit of code looks like this:

Vidor bitstream version: 1020107 number of devices 9 1 01000000 MB_DEV_SF 1 02000000 MB_DEV_GPIO 4 04000000 MB_DEV_I2C 6 05000000 MB_DEV_SPI 8 06000000 MB_DEV_UART 1 08000000 MB_DEV_SDRAM 4 09000000 MB_DEV_NP 11 0A000000 MB_DEV_ENC 0 0B000000 MB_DEV_REG

In many cases, the devices provided by the FPGA are pretty transparent. For example, here’s another snip from the example code:

// Ok, so we know now that the FPGA contains the extended GPIO IP // The GPIO pins controlled by the FPGA start from 100 // Please refer to the online documentation for the actual pin assignment // Let's configure pin A0 to be an output, controlled by the FPGA FPGA.pinMode(33, OUTPUT); FPGA.digitalWrite(33, HIGH); // The same pin can be read by the SAMD processor :) pinMode(A0, INPUT); Serial.print("Pin A0 is "); Serial.println(digitalRead(A0) == LOW ? "LOW" : "HIGH"); FPGA.digitalWrite(33, LOW); Serial.print("Pin A0 is "); Serial.println(digitalRead(A0) == LOW ? "LOW" : "HIGH");

That’s easy enough and it is nice that the pins are usable from the CPU and FPGA. We couldn’t find the documentation mapping the pins, but we assume it is coming.

Using, say, an extra serial interface is easy, too:

SerialFPGA1.begin(115200); while (!SerialFPGA1); SerialFPGA1.println("test");

Bitstream

So where’s the FPGA code? As far as you can tell, this is just a new Arduino with a lot of extra devices that connect through this mysterious FPGA object. The trick is that the FPGA code is in the library. To see how it works, let’s talk a little about how an FPGA operates.

When you write a program in C, that’s not really what the computer looks at, right? The compiler converts it into a bunch of numbers that tell the CPU to do things. An FPGA is both the same and different from that. You write your program — usually in a hardware design language like Verilog or VHDL. You compile it to numbers, but those numbers don’t get executed like a CPU does.

The best analogy I’ve been able to think of is that an FPGA is like one of those old Radio Shack 100-in-1 electronic kits. There are a bunch of parts on a board and some way to connect them with wires. Put the wires one way and you have a radio. Put them another way and you have a burglar alarm. Rewire it again and you have a metal detector. The numbers correspond to wires. They make connections and configure options in the FPGA’s circuitry. Unless you’ve built a CPU, there’s nothing in there examining and acting on the numbers like there would be with a CPU.

The numbers that come out of an FPGA tool is usually called a bitstream. Someone has to send that bitstream to an FPGA like the Cyclone onboard the Arduino every time it powers up. That someone is usually a memory device on the board, although the CPU can do it, too.

So that leads to two questions: Where is the bitstream? How does it get to the FPGA?

The answer to the first question is easy. If you look on Github, you’ll see in the library there is a file called VidorBase.cpp. It has the following lines:

__attribute__ ((used, section(".fpga_bitstream"))) const unsigned char bitstream[] = { #include "app.ttf" };

What this means if there is an array called bitstream that the linker will put it in a specially marked section of memory. That array gets initialized with app.ttf which is just an ASCII file full of numbers. Despite the name, it is not a TrueType font. What do the numbers mean? Hard to say, although, in theory, you could reverse engineer it just like you can disassemble binary code for a CPU. However, it is the configuration required to make all the library calls we just talked about work.

The second question about how it gets to the FPGA configuration is a bit of a mystery. As far as we can tell, the bootloader understands that data in that section should get copied over to the FPGA configuration memory and does the copying for you. It isn’t clear if there’s a copy in the main flash and a copy in the configuration flash but it seems to work transparently in any event.

There’s a checksum defined in the code but we changed it and everything still worked. Presumably, at some point, the IDE or the bootloader will complain if you have the wrong checksum, but that doesn’t appear to be the case now.

By the way, according to the Arduino forum, there are actually two bitstreams. One that loads on power-up that you would rarely (if ever) change. Then there is another that is the one included with the library. You can double-click the reset button to enter bootloader mode and we suspect that leaves the FPGA initialized with the first bitstream, but we don’t know that for sure. In bootloader mode, though, the red LED onboard has a breathing effect so you can tell the double click works.

What about my FPGA Code?

This isn’t great news if you were hoping for an easy Arduino-like way to do your own FPGA development in Verilog or VHDL. Intel will give you a copy of Quartus Prime which will generate bitstreams all day for you. We think — but we aren’t sure — that the ASCII format is just a raw conversion from binary of the bitstream files.

Very recently, Arduino provided a Quartus project that would create a bitstream. This provides a few key pieces of the puzzle, like the constraint file that lets the FPGA compiler find the different parts on the board.

However, even with that project, you still have some reverse engineering to do if you want to get started. Why? Here’s what Arduino says about loading your own FPGA code (we added the emphasis):

Quartus will produce a set of files under the output_files directory in the project folder. In order to incorporate the FPGA in the Arduino code you need to create a library and preprocess the ttf file generated by Quartus so that it contains the appropriate headers required by the software infrastructure. Details of this process will be disclosed as soon as the flow is stable.

Programming the FPGA is possible in various ways:

Flashing the image along with Arduino code creating a library which incorporates the ttf file

Programming the image in RAM through USB Blaster (this requires mounting the FPGA JTAG header). this can be done safely only when SAM D21 is in bootloader mode as in other conditions it may access JTAG and cause a contention

Programming the image in RAM through the emulated USB Blaster via SAM D21 (this component is pending release)

In addition, the repository itself says that some key pieces are missing until they can work out licensing or clean up the code. So this gets us closer, but you’d still need to reverse engineer the header from the examples and/or figure out how to force the processor off the JTAG bus. The good news is it sounds like this information is coming, it just isn’t here yet.

Of course, you are going to need to understand a lot more to do anything significant. We know the FPGA is set in the AS configuration mode. We also asked Arduino about the clock architecture of the board and they told us:

[The CPU] has its own clock which is used to generate a 48 MHz reference clock that is fed to the FPGA (and that can be removed at any time to “freeze” fpga). In addition to this reference clock, [the] FPGA has an internal RC oscillator which can’t be used as [a] precise timing reference for tolerance issues but can be used in case you don’t want [the CPU] to produce the reference clock.

Of course, the FPGA has a number of PLLs onboard that can take any valid clock and produce other frequencies. For example, in the vision application, Arduino demonstrated, the 48 MHz clock is converted into 24 MHz, 60 MHz, 100 MHz, and 120 MHz clocks by PLLs.

Mix and Match?

One thing that is disappointing is that — at least for now — you won’t be able to mix and match different FPGA libraries. There is exactly one bitstream and you can’t just jam them together. Although FPGAs can often be partially configured, that’s a difficult technique. But we were a little surprised that the IDE didn’t understand how to take libraries with, for example, EDIF design files for IP that would all get compiled together. That way I could pick the Arduino UART and mix it with the Hackaday PWM output module along with my own Verilog or VHDL.

The way things are structured now you will have one bitstream that is precompiled by another tool (probably Quartus for the foreseeable future). It will match up with a particular C++ library. And that’s it. Doesn’t matter how much of the FPGA is left over or how much of it you really use, you will use it all for the one library.

Of course, you can load another library but it is going to replace the first one. So you only get one set of functions at a time and someone else gets to decide what’s in that set. If you roll your own, you are going to have to roll your own all the way.

What’s Next?

It is still early for the Arduino Vidor. We are hopeful we’ll get the tools and procedures necessary to drop our own FPGA configurations in. It would be great, too, if the stock libraries were available in source format including the Verilog HDL. The recent GitHub release shows quite a bit, although it isn’t all of the examples, it is probably enough if we get the rest of the information.

As for a more intuitive interface, we don’t know if that’s in the cards or not. We don’t see much evidence of it, although posts on the Arduino forum indicate they will eventually supply an “IP Assembler” that will let you compose different modules into one bitstream. We don’t know if that will only work with “official” modules or not. However, we know the Arduino community is very resourceful so if we don’t get a good ecosystem it will not surprise us if someone else makes it happen. Eventually.

For now, we will continue to play with the existing bitstreams that become available. There are some neat new features on the CPU, too. For example, you can map two of the unused serial modules. There’s a hardware-based cooperative multitasking capability. As more details on the FPGA emerge, we’ll keep you posted and if you learn something, be sure to leave word in the comments so everyone can benefit.

Hands-On with New Arduino FPGA Board: MKR Vidor 4000 was originally published on PlanetArduino

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