3 ms·
>It's not the bitstream format that is stopping you. It's the comprehensive tooling in this field that is not open which holds you back. It's like not having ac
by sobkas 11y ago
>It's not the bitstream format that is stopping you. It's the comprehensive tooling in this field that is not open which holds you back. It's like not having access to GCC[...]
I don't think that having a tool that can't produce working binaries(bitstream or native code) would be that useful. Can you imagine a GCC that can't produce native code but instead have to generate COBOL sources(with almost random feature set) to be compiled by vendors tools?
>[...]Intel about their microcode[...]
Intel have a widely known instruction set that can be used with their cpus, there are many compilers, interpreters(and more) that generate and use it without problems, so I don't see how this analogy is relevant
>There is so much more to the process of creating something useful with an fpga.
You need tools and potential creators of such tools need access to bitstream format used by fpgas to create useful tools
>The most useful tools in fpga dev have little to do with the part of translating the Verilog/Vhdl into something the fpga understands.
But without the ability to translate your code(any code not just vhdl/some variant of verilog) into bitstream, where you would run* it on? It's hard to consider tool useful for fpga development when it can't produce something that can be run* on fpga...
*oh come one, don't be pedantic
- coderdude 11y agoI'm on my phone so I'll try to address each of your points in order (copy paste is painful on mobile). The tools available for that task are compact and I'd imagine quite portable based on the OSes they are already supported on. Huge vendor downloads aside, I don't think the problem in the ecosystem is with those tools not being OSS. Intel's instruction set (ISA if you will, for those reading), is at a higher level than microcode. Microcode is specific to an architecture but not the instruction set. No programmer touches microcode and as far as I'm aware, it's secret and proprietary. The useful tools to be created that would be open are not related to bitstream formats. (This is actually an assumption that I cannot fully verify at this time.) I'm not not sure how to address the last point. I'm not trying to be pedantic at all. I'll come back to this as I wrap my head around it. Edit: I'm continuing to make small edits to grammar and wording.
- sobkas 11y agoIntel cpu is stll useful without pushing external microcode to it, while the point of fpga is the ability to program/configure it. Also there are many usefull tools that could be created if bitstream format was known. Some of with could be usefull for other devs, not only fpga devs. And there are so many things you could potentially do with your bitstream, like generating it on the fly. While floss tools would be nice,(gcc or llvm compiling a function to be accelarated by fpga, and then proper bitsream be genarated on startup by fpga driver) but just having alternatives from vendor suplied toolchain would be good.
- coderdude 11y agoI may not fully grok your argument at this time but I will come back and read this again later so that I can respond better. I do appreciate your feedback because this topic is of great interest to me.