10 ms·

Developing open-source FPGA tools

277 points by mr_golyadkin 7y ago

gdsdfe 7y ago
I think the best way to support this kind of effort is to have more people know what FPGA is and what they can do with it ... So they can use the tools and tinker with this stuff. So if you're into this space just write more content : articles, how-to's, videos, tutorials etc.
- analog31 7y ago
  A colleague and I bought TinyFPGA boards to learn FPGA. So far I can do everything I need with a microcontroller, but would like to get ahead of the game. I got "LED Blink" working, which is the embedded version of Hello World. It's a great product. There's definitely a quality gradient from mainstream OS development tools down to FPGAs.
- ambrop7 7y ago
  Also, more SW programmers should be getting into this field, as by working in SW first you realize all the things that need improvement in the FPGA world (which the FPGA people didn't recognize, not knowing how SW is done in the modern world, or got used to).
DoingIsLearning 7y ago
For those who are not familiar with silicon vendors' toolchain, it really is very poor quality especially when they started pushing for GUI based Graphical/System development. Vendors make money selling silicon, they see the toolchain as a necessary evil. There are 2018 tools that are still unable to fully support VHDL-2008 standard. Many bugs reported years again remain open. And often the GUI centric approach means you are left manually changing ad nauseam several GUI fields and ticking boxes, until you eventually determine what is the tcl 'equivalent' to at least try to ease your pain (tcl scripting often is another pain all together but arguably a lesser evil). Also specifically with Xilinx they seem to have zero consideration for basic version control and create/duplicate/modify an explosion of files and cached versions of files. Projects like GHDL and this are a breath of fresh are.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Psst…I think you mean "silicon".
  - DoingIsLearning 7y ago
    Haha indeed! I will leave it for traceability. I had to apply some bathroom silicone sealant over the weekend so I just go ahead and blame it on that.
    - segfaultbuserr 7y ago
      And we use silicone thermal paste on top of a piece of silicon ;-)
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        Nothing but the finest pulverized silver for me, thanks ;)
    - dang 7y ago
      I removed those sticky e's from your fine comment above. I hope that's ok. It makes the discussion less distracting.
      - DoingIsLearning 7y ago
        No problem at all, it is a relevant discussion but in a way I now feel I moved attention away from the intent of the OP which was to raise awareness and support for Symbiflow.
        dang 7y ago
        I've edited obvious typos in some comments. I can't seem to help it.
  - DarkWiiPlayer 7y ago
xvilka 7y ago
And the repositories[1] themselves. You can also help them with the code - see the bunch of ideas[2] for the project. [1] https://github.com/SymbiFlow https://github.com/SymbiFlow [2] https://github.com/SymbiFlow/ideas/issues https://github.com/SymbiFlow/ideas/issues
djhworld 7y ago
What are people doing with FPGAs? I'd be really interested in understanding or seeing some cool projects!
- fest 7y ago
  Driving a lot of LEDs: https://mobile.twitter.com/GregDavill/status/1192515630626291712 https://mobile.twitter.com/GregDavill/status/119251563062629... Processing video (especially if you have weird requirements like 14 bit greyscale input): https://gregdavill.com/blog/2018/9/9/boson-camera-project-part-4 https://gregdavill.com/blog/2018/9/9/boson-camera-project-pa... Experimenting with non-mainstream CPUs: https://www.thanassis.space/myowncpu.html https://www.thanassis.space/myowncpu.html https://github.com/cliffordwolf/picorv32 https://github.com/cliffordwolf/picorv32
- dlieu 7y ago
  it's also used in high frequency trading (market data processing, order passing, light strategies)
  - sm4rk0 7y ago
    That's probably only one of many applications. Just search for DFE (data flow engine). Maxeler is one of the manufacturers.
- ddorian43 7y ago
  Example: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-catapult/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-cat... (bing search etc)
- monocasa 7y ago
  Motor control for a pretty high number of motors. There's rumors that a couple of the big cloud vendors use them on network cards for SDN. Integration with non standard peripherals like ku band radios on a satellite.
  - guipsp 7y ago
lukego 7y ago
Dave is a hero for the work that he is doing here. I'm really pleased to see that his Patreon is growing and reaching a non-trivial ("rent") level of monthly funding. Great job everybody who is supporting him!
- HNLurker2 7y ago
  Yeah it's a big job to tackle (open source software for fpga)
  - rvense 7y ago
    But the tools are improving quickly! Because of Dave and the general community. It's really great to watch (and use!).
mkesper 7y ago
More info on the patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/fpga_dave https://www.patreon.com/fpga_dave
dkozel 7y ago
This has been the most exciting software work I've seen in the last year. David is doing fantastic work. If you haven't seen anything about the development of these tools his talk at FOSDEM in February was quite good. https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/trellis_and_nextpnr/ https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/trellis_and_n...
- acathla 7y ago
  And you can become his patreon to support his fantastic work : https://www.patreon.com/fpga_dave https://www.patreon.com/fpga_dave
rough-sea 7y ago
I wish there was an open source FPGA silicon design.
- sreevisakh 7y ago
  Open source silicon design itself is at its infancy. You may be interested in this project: https://libresilicon.com/ https://libresilicon.com/ . It has a very interesting history. I really hope that someday, this will grow into a room sized fab - like how 3D printing is progressing today.
hermitdev 7y ago
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Icarus Verilog [0]. I used this extensively when I was in college around 2002. Open source, used to only support FreeBSD (my first BSD exposure), but is cross platform. It saved my ass, as I didnt have to compete for limited lab time on the few Solaris boxes with the proprietary tools we used in my VLSI class while studying EE. I was sitting on my living room floor with my FreeBSD laptop punching out my project while others were waiting in line at 2am for lab time. Fun times. Wrote all of the components for a basic 8-bit ALU while watching with Mothman Propechies and sipping some Bourbon. Wrote a C++ program in that time, too, to generate exhaustive tests for all components. Icarus was fucking awesome for all this. As a commuter student my last 2 years, not having to hang out waiting for time was awesome. I got a lot more sleep, and a lot more done. I've not kept up with its development, but its apparently now cross platform and still under active development. Any amateur interested in Verilog should definitely give it a look. [0] http://iverilog.icarus.com http://iverilog.icarus.com
- bsder 7y ago
  We used Icarus Verilog for a class at SDSU specifically so we weren't saddled with crappy vendor tools. It even worked on Windows. And, come on, how can you argue with a coding team who will make you an honorary "Steve"? (Inside joke: for a while it seemed like everyone who worked on Icarus Verilog was named "Steve" or some variant--so we started joking that anyone not named Steve needed to get rechristened with a new honorary first name.)
  - hermitdev 7y ago
    Back when I used Icarus, I dont think it worked on Windows. I'm pretty sure it was the reason I got a cheap laptop off eBay to install FreeBSD on. This would have been around 2002-2003. Regardless, it is an awesome tool and certainly saved me a ton of time. I wish I could comment on its current state, but I just havent used it since college. Tangential, working on FreeBSD with Icarus is what caused me to learn/love/prefer Vim. It was there. It worked, and I learned (some) of it's quirks.

277 points by mr_golyadkin 7y ago

I think the best way to support this kind of effort is to have more people know what FPGA is and what they can do with it ... So they can use the tools and tinker with this stuff. So if you're into this space just write more content : articles, how-to's, videos, tutorials etc.

analog31 7y ago
A colleague and I bought TinyFPGA boards to learn FPGA. So far I can do everything I need with a microcontroller, but would like to get ahead of the game. I got "LED Blink" working, which is the embedded version of Hello World. It's a great product. There's definitely a quality gradient from mainstream OS development tools down to FPGAs.
ambrop7 7y ago
Also, more SW programmers should be getting into this field, as by working in SW first you realize all the things that need improvement in the FPGA world (which the FPGA people didn't recognize, not knowing how SW is done in the modern world, or got used to).

DoingIsLearning 7y ago

For those who are not familiar with silicon vendors' toolchain, it really is very poor quality especially when they started pushing for GUI based Graphical/System development. Vendors make money selling silicon, they see the toolchain as a necessary evil. There are 2018 tools that are still unable to fully support VHDL-2008 standard. Many bugs reported years again remain open. And often the GUI centric approach means you are left manually changing ad nauseam several GUI fields and ticking boxes, until you eventually determine what is the tcl 'equivalent' to at least try to ease your pain (tcl scripting often is another pain all together but arguably a lesser evil). Also specifically with Xilinx they seem to have zero consideration for basic version control and create/duplicate/modify an explosion of files and cached versions of files. Projects like GHDL and this are a breath of fresh are.

saagarjha 7y ago
Psst…I think you mean "silicon".
- DoingIsLearning 7y ago
  Haha indeed! I will leave it for traceability. I had to apply some bathroom silicone sealant over the weekend so I just go ahead and blame it on that.
  - segfaultbuserr 7y ago
    And we use silicone thermal paste on top of a piece of silicon ;-)
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      Nothing but the finest pulverized silver for me, thanks ;)
  - dang 7y ago
    I removed those sticky e's from your fine comment above. I hope that's ok. It makes the discussion less distracting.
    - DoingIsLearning 7y ago
      No problem at all, it is a relevant discussion but in a way I now feel I moved attention away from the intent of the OP which was to raise awareness and support for Symbiflow.
      - dang 7y ago
        I've edited obvious typos in some comments. I can't seem to help it.
- DarkWiiPlayer 7y ago

xvilka 7y ago

And the repositories[1] themselves. You can also help them with the code - see the bunch of ideas[2] for the project. [1] https://github.com/SymbiFlow https://github.com/SymbiFlow [2] https://github.com/SymbiFlow/ideas/issues https://github.com/SymbiFlow/ideas/issues

djhworld 7y ago

What are people doing with FPGAs? I'd be really interested in understanding or seeing some cool projects!

fest 7y ago
Driving a lot of LEDs: https://mobile.twitter.com/GregDavill/status/1192515630626291712 https://mobile.twitter.com/GregDavill/status/119251563062629... Processing video (especially if you have weird requirements like 14 bit greyscale input): https://gregdavill.com/blog/2018/9/9/boson-camera-project-part-4 https://gregdavill.com/blog/2018/9/9/boson-camera-project-pa... Experimenting with non-mainstream CPUs: https://www.thanassis.space/myowncpu.html https://www.thanassis.space/myowncpu.html https://github.com/cliffordwolf/picorv32 https://github.com/cliffordwolf/picorv32
dlieu 7y ago
it's also used in high frequency trading (market data processing, order passing, light strategies)
- sm4rk0 7y ago
  That's probably only one of many applications. Just search for DFE (data flow engine). Maxeler is one of the manufacturers.
ddorian43 7y ago
Example: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-catapult/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-cat... (bing search etc)
monocasa 7y ago
Motor control for a pretty high number of motors. There's rumors that a couple of the big cloud vendors use them on network cards for SDN. Integration with non standard peripherals like ku band radios on a satellite.
- guipsp 7y ago

lukego 7y ago

Dave is a hero for the work that he is doing here. I'm really pleased to see that his Patreon is growing and reaching a non-trivial ("rent") level of monthly funding. Great job everybody who is supporting him!

HNLurker2 7y ago
Yeah it's a big job to tackle (open source software for fpga)
- rvense 7y ago
  But the tools are improving quickly! Because of Dave and the general community. It's really great to watch (and use!).

mkesper 7y ago

More info on the patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/fpga_dave https://www.patreon.com/fpga_dave

dkozel 7y ago

This has been the most exciting software work I've seen in the last year. David is doing fantastic work. If you haven't seen anything about the development of these tools his talk at FOSDEM in February was quite good. https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/trellis_and_nextpnr/ https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/trellis_and_n...

acathla 7y ago
And you can become his patreon to support his fantastic work : https://www.patreon.com/fpga_dave https://www.patreon.com/fpga_dave

rough-sea 7y ago

I wish there was an open source FPGA silicon design.

sreevisakh 7y ago
Open source silicon design itself is at its infancy. You may be interested in this project: https://libresilicon.com/ https://libresilicon.com/ . It has a very interesting history. I really hope that someday, this will grow into a room sized fab - like how 3D printing is progressing today.

hermitdev 7y ago

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Icarus Verilog [0]. I used this extensively when I was in college around 2002. Open source, used to only support FreeBSD (my first BSD exposure), but is cross platform. It saved my ass, as I didnt have to compete for limited lab time on the few Solaris boxes with the proprietary tools we used in my VLSI class while studying EE. I was sitting on my living room floor with my FreeBSD laptop punching out my project while others were waiting in line at 2am for lab time. Fun times. Wrote all of the components for a basic 8-bit ALU while watching with Mothman Propechies and sipping some Bourbon. Wrote a C++ program in that time, too, to generate exhaustive tests for all components. Icarus was fucking awesome for all this. As a commuter student my last 2 years, not having to hang out waiting for time was awesome. I got a lot more sleep, and a lot more done. I've not kept up with its development, but its apparently now cross platform and still under active development. Any amateur interested in Verilog should definitely give it a look. [0] http://iverilog.icarus.com http://iverilog.icarus.com

bsder 7y ago
We used Icarus Verilog for a class at SDSU specifically so we weren't saddled with crappy vendor tools. It even worked on Windows. And, come on, how can you argue with a coding team who will make you an honorary "Steve"? (Inside joke: for a while it seemed like everyone who worked on Icarus Verilog was named "Steve" or some variant--so we started joking that anyone not named Steve needed to get rechristened with a new honorary first name.)
- hermitdev 7y ago
  Back when I used Icarus, I dont think it worked on Windows. I'm pretty sure it was the reason I got a cheap laptop off eBay to install FreeBSD on. This would have been around 2002-2003. Regardless, it is an awesome tool and certainly saved me a ton of time. I wish I could comment on its current state, but I just havent used it since college. Tangential, working on FreeBSD with Icarus is what caused me to learn/love/prefer Vim. It was there. It worked, and I learned (some) of it's quirks.