There's also this FPGA board and I think you can order it already: https://ulx3s.github.io/
The ULX3S FPGA board has the Lattice ECP5 FPGA, and an ESP32 that connects to wifi and can reprogram the FPGA.
FPGA dev board that's cheap, simple and supported by OSS toolchain
71–77 of 77 posts
Re: FPGA dev board that's cheap, simple and supported by OSS toolchain
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not enough RAM. 640kB is actually enough for anyone as far as scalar variables in a single app are concerned so that’s what these small single task microcontrollers have.
> 640kB is actually enough for anyone For a minute there I thought you were about to quote a certain Mr Gates... But I'm now claiming "Mr Gates" to be the name of my first FPGA project
This gave me a good chuckle
Re: FPGA dev board that's cheap, simple and supported by OSS toolchain
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
It really depends on your prior experience. If you're a programmer that's used to working with a command line-based Unix environment, the open tools will feel a lot more familiar than the proprietary ones.
That's actually a really good point. When someone says "beginner", I never think of someone who already knows the Unix command line. I've been doing this for far too many years, and I'm struggling to think of anybody I know who does FPGA work and knows the UNIX command line--even among the experienced hands.
I think us "old hats" using GNU/Linux from the 90s are increasingly getting interested in the hardware side of things.
You are likely too biased in the Windows world, which is exactly what HN is not (probably! I have no data to prove that, just a hunch based on the discussions I took a part of on HN).
Re: FPGA dev board that's cheap, simple and supported by OSS toolchain
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It can cause surprising problems if you don't check the dev board manual's pin table Nah, you got it all wrong. You need to pull up the devboard's Pinout, User Guide, and Overview documents. Sometimes cross reference those to the devboard's schematic for the trickier pins. Alongside the specific User Guide and Programming manuals for the MCU on the board. Plus the MCU's guides don't typically cover stuff that's com…
Those issues transcend the discovery board. It's frustrating how much the Reference Manuals leave to the imagination. A lot of the peripherals are similar or identical across families. Some have subtle differences, and some have large ones. I haven't found a shortcut - seems you really need to bring up parallel reference manuals. For example, the RTC periph is the same on most STM32 devices. Clocks vary significantly…
One potential shortcut is if you install their CubeMX and take a look in it's data files there are XML files for each distinct peripheral. So there'll be something like RTC_v1.0.xml and RTC_v2.0.xml. Someone uploaded an old copy of them [1] if you just want a quick look.
Then there's also device & device family xml files that link to the various peripherals they have [2].
There's probably no guarantees but in my experience if two devices link to the same version xml file their peripheral registers at least will be identical. Quirks and silicon bugs, you are on your own of course... but then the ref manual doesn't help with that either!
[1] https://github.com/esden/stm32cube-database/tree/master/db/m...
[2] https://github.com/esden/stm32cube-database/tree/master/db/m...
Re: FPGA dev board that's cheap, simple and supported by OSS toolchain
#75It is interesting that the github does not mention that this FPGA chip is optimized for ML inference. Or is sold as such at least:
https://www.latticesemi.com/en/Products/FPGAandCPLD/iCE40Ult...
I am not versed enough in FPGA to know if this is just a marketing rebranding of common features (apparently a focus on LUTs and add-and-multiply operations) or if it is an actual edge.
Though, if that thing can do pattern recognition in images and draws 10 mA max, that's an interesting package for $24
Re: FPGA dev board that's cheap, simple and supported by OSS toolchain
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's actually a really good point. When someone says "beginner", I never think of someone who already knows the Unix command line. I've been doing this for far too many years, and I'm struggling to think of anybody I know who does FPGA work and knows the UNIX command line--even among the experienced hands.
I think us "old hats" using GNU/Linux from the 90s are increasingly getting interested in the hardware side of things. You are likely too biased in the Windows world, which is exactly what HN is not (probably! I have no data to prove that, just a hunch based on the discussions I took a part of on HN).
Well, my beard is very grey an I am a recovering sysadmin ... as they say. :)
However, none of my colleagues in hardware design really know UNIX--neither junior nor senior.
And what's with the downvoters in this thread? Stop downvoting people because you disagree with them--COMMENT, DAMMIT.
I'm beginning to suspect that the HN "You're posting too fast" limit gets hit too quickly and people can only upvote/downvote so they default to that.
Re: FPGA dev board that's cheap, simple and supported by OSS toolchain
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think us "old hats" using GNU/Linux from the 90s are increasingly getting interested in the hardware side of things. You are likely too biased in the Windows world, which is exactly what HN is not (probably! I have no data to prove that, just a hunch based on the discussions I took a part of on HN).
Well, my beard is very grey an I am a recovering sysadmin ... as they say. :) However, none of my colleagues in hardware design really know UNIX--neither junior nor senior. And what's with the downvoters in this thread? Stop downvoting people because you disagree with them--COMMENT, DAMMIT. I'm beginning to suspect that the HN "You're posting too fast" limit gets hit too quickly and people can only upvote/downvote so…
I think many people default to downvote-when-disagree. It's partially the "like/dislike" culture, but I think it's mostly because it's the opposite of upvote-when-agreeing.
I agree with you that downvotes are useless when one simply disagrees and don't help the author or the reader learn. With the "flag" feature though, I am not sure I see the point of downvoting at all (other than when someone repeats the same disproven argument in the thread): upvoting is there to indicate "me too", but any such thing turns into a popularity context.