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Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:37:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: David Collins <davidcollins78 AT yahoo DOT com>
Subject: Re: [geda-user] FPGA / CPLD development with Linux
To: "geda-user AT delorie DOT com" <geda-user AT delorie DOT com>
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Thanks for the feedback on this everyone - and apologies I haven't had time to respond to individual posts. I realise that my initial questions were a little vague, and appreciate your patience with a newcomer.

I'm a little bit disappointed to learn that open-source software for working with FPGAs are so limited, but not surprised at the same time. If something like Altera's Quartus software is the recommended solution, I'll probably try that at some stage anyway.

I might get back with more specific questions at a later stage.

By the way: is there an active IRC channel for discussion of this sort of thing (i.e. open-source EDA)? The 'pcb' channel on freenode has always seemed very quiet when I signed into it. (It's generally less intimidating posing newbie questions on IRC than on a mailing list.)
 

David


----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Stuge <peter AT stuge DOT se>
To: gEDA users <geda-user AT delorie DOT com>
Cc: 
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 1:06 AM
Subject: Re: [geda-user] FPGA / CPLD development with Linux

David Collins wrote:
> The most obvious issues seem to be:
>  1. Will I be able to synthesize circuits for these devices using
>     Icarus Verilog?, and

What does "these devices" mean? The question is completely open
ended. Anyway, I suggest to look at the Icarus Verilog code and
get in touch with that community, to find out what it can do as
well as what it's limitations are.

I would start out with the expectation that you need to use the
vendor's toolchain however.


>  2. Are there open-source tools for working with the Altera JTAG
>     USB-blaster?

Several. urjtag is one, OpenOCD has an SVF player and can use the
USB Blaster, and the jtagserver process used by the Linux version
of Altera's Quartus toolchain (gigabytes of download wohoo!) while
not open source might have it's IPC API documented (or discoverable
easy enough).


> Also, is there a particular FPGA or development kit you would
> recommend?

That depends completely on what your needs are for the FPGA
application, in terms of IO standards, what hard components you
require on the silicon, ie. CPU core, clocking, serdes, particular
IO standards, IO voltages, number of IOs, and so on.


> Would I be better off with a Xilinx device?

If your purpose is learning then I would recommend that you try both.
Personally I also like the Actel parts. They're more expensive per
speed, and the toolchain GUI is a mess, but I like that they are live
at power on. They also have some very small size and very low power
parts. By now, Xilinx also have nonvolatile parts.

But it's just as stupid to say "Xilinx is always the best choice" as
it is to say "Python is always the best choice."


> If anyone has experience developing for CPLDs with Linux, I am
> interested in advice on that also.

Again, how different they are, if at all, depends on what specific
parts you look at. High end CPLDs will be similar to low end FPGAs.


Start by choosing a project. Something simple. Choose parts from there.


//Peter