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If you feel like you've finally groked GPU/massive parallel software programming and need more challenges, I highly recommend playing around with digital circui

If you feel like you've finally groked GPU/massive parallel software programming and need more challenges, I highly recommend playing around with digital circuits! The level of parallelism available to you in hardware is truly unmatched and it's incredibly fun, especially once you start really pushing implementations of your designs on FPGAs. Granted, FPGAs are frequently less useful than what you could do on a GPU due to the higher clock speeds available on ASICs (if your GPU core clock is 3GHz and your FPGA design maxes out at 500MHz [which would be admirable!], the GPU has nearly 6x the number of cycles to match or beat your implementation!).

shihab 3y ago
How do you get started with that?
- naitgacem 3y ago
  have a look into hardware descriptive languages, VHDL or verilog and go from there
  - Vilian 3y ago
    How is the best way to programm with them?, IDE or LSP?
    - Twisol 3y ago
      The OSS CAD Suite [0] is a good open-source toolchain for this stuff. You can then write hardware designs in the SytemVerilog language (VSCode has some plugins, I believe, but I've just been using a basic text editor) and use the build toolchain to compile ("synthesize") and program e.g. an FPGA with your designs. (FWIW, I've only just taken a class on Verilog this past Spring, but we used oss-cad-suite and I found it pretty straightforward to use. The bundled version of Verilator had some issues on my Mac though, so I had to compile my own copy of Verilator.) [0] https://github.com/YosysHQ/oss-cad-suite-build/ https://github.com/YosysHQ/oss-cad-suite-build/
- petrohi 3y ago
  I started by reading “Digital Design and Computer Architecture”. There’s new RISC-V edition https://a.co/d/imzGBK5 https://a.co/d/imzGBK5. The book starts from Boolean logic and transistor technology and goes all the way to assembly programming with everything in between. Most importantly gives great introduction to HDLs. Next I played with a bunch of hardware projects specifically targeting inexpensive Arty-A7 board to get comfortable with FPGA tooling.
  - 3abiton 3y ago
    Had a friend who fell into that black hole, it's so time consuming for peoplecwith little time
  - Jtsummers 3y ago
    https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.5555/2815529 https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.5555/2815529 Their ARM edition (2015) is available for free via the ACM.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  FPGAs are hardware, you generally program them with hardware description languages like Verilog. If you don’t want to buy hardware (reasonable, IMO, since HDL is kind of niche and the boards can be pricey), you could try out the language with something like Verilator. This will let you write Verilog, and then compile it to generate C++ classes which simulate your design.

shihab 3y ago

How do you get started with that?

naitgacem 3y ago
have a look into hardware descriptive languages, VHDL or verilog and go from there
- Vilian 3y ago
  How is the best way to programm with them?, IDE or LSP?
  - Twisol 3y ago
    The OSS CAD Suite [0] is a good open-source toolchain for this stuff. You can then write hardware designs in the SytemVerilog language (VSCode has some plugins, I believe, but I've just been using a basic text editor) and use the build toolchain to compile ("synthesize") and program e.g. an FPGA with your designs. (FWIW, I've only just taken a class on Verilog this past Spring, but we used oss-cad-suite and I found it pretty straightforward to use. The bundled version of Verilator had some issues on my Mac though, so I had to compile my own copy of Verilator.) [0] https://github.com/YosysHQ/oss-cad-suite-build/ https://github.com/YosysHQ/oss-cad-suite-build/
petrohi 3y ago
I started by reading “Digital Design and Computer Architecture”. There’s new RISC-V edition https://a.co/d/imzGBK5 https://a.co/d/imzGBK5. The book starts from Boolean logic and transistor technology and goes all the way to assembly programming with everything in between. Most importantly gives great introduction to HDLs. Next I played with a bunch of hardware projects specifically targeting inexpensive Arty-A7 board to get comfortable with FPGA tooling.
- 3abiton 3y ago
  Had a friend who fell into that black hole, it's so time consuming for peoplecwith little time
- Jtsummers 3y ago
  https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.5555/2815529 https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.5555/2815529 Their ARM edition (2015) is available for free via the ACM.
bee_rider 3y ago
FPGAs are hardware, you generally program them with hardware description languages like Verilog. If you don’t want to buy hardware (reasonable, IMO, since HDL is kind of niche and the boards can be pricey), you could try out the language with something like Verilator. This will let you write Verilog, and then compile it to generate C++ classes which simulate your design.