How FPGAs work, and why people will buy them (2013)

This is the problem with FPGAs. Their performance and utility is not really disputed. Working with them is so un-ergonomic that it's frankly embarrassing.

The EE world is notoriously closed/proprietary making it incredibly difficult to explore novelty or customize tooling to suit specific needs. The situation is reminiscent of the pre-gcc era proprietary C compilers. Sure synthesis / place and route are much harder problems than compiling to machine code but I would guess that fact amplifies the need.

One can't really expect software's current development comfort without acknowledging its driving force (GNU/the free software movement).

Re: How FPGAs work, and why people will buy them (2013)

#6

Post by _lbaq » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 3:50 PM UTC

davemp wrote: post #5

> FPGAs are a programmable platform, but one designed by EEs for EEs rather than for programmers. This is the problem with FPGAs. Their performance and utility is not really disputed. Working with them is so un-ergonomic that it's frankly embarrassing. The EE world is notoriously closed/proprietary making it incredibly difficult to explore novelty or customize tooling to suit specific needs. The situation is reminisc…

One exception, the ICE range from Lattice which have a open source tool-chain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_(FPGA)

Re: How FPGAs work, and why people will buy them (2013)

#7

Post by xigency » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

davemp wrote: post #5

> FPGAs are a programmable platform, but one designed by EEs for EEs rather than for programmers. This is the problem with FPGAs. Their performance and utility is not really disputed. Working with them is so un-ergonomic that it's frankly embarrassing. The EE world is notoriously closed/proprietary making it incredibly difficult to explore novelty or customize tooling to suit specific needs. The situation is reminisc…

> The EE world is notoriously closed/proprietary

See the IEEE.

Re: How FPGAs work, and why people will buy them (2013)

#8

Post by davemp » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 3:58 PM UTC

_lbaq wrote: post #6

davemp wrote: post #5

> FPGAs are a programmable platform, but one designed by EEs for EEs rather than for programmers. This is the problem with FPGAs. Their performance and utility is not really disputed. Working with them is so un-ergonomic that it's frankly embarrassing. The EE world is notoriously closed/proprietary making it incredibly difficult to explore novelty or customize tooling to suit specific needs. The situation is reminisc…

One exception, the ICE range from Lattice which have a open source tool-chain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_(FPGA)

AFAIK that tool-chain is thanks to the reverse engineering efforts of an individual and not Lattice itself. It's a step towards the right direction, but not really a first class vendor supported tool.

Re: How FPGAs work, and why people will buy them (2013)

#9

Post by hinkley » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 4:10 PM UTC

davemp wrote: post #5

> FPGAs are a programmable platform, but one designed by EEs for EEs rather than for programmers. This is the problem with FPGAs. Their performance and utility is not really disputed. Working with them is so un-ergonomic that it's frankly embarrassing. The EE world is notoriously closed/proprietary making it incredibly difficult to explore novelty or customize tooling to suit specific needs. The situation is reminisc…

From what I understand, chips are now laid out by an optimizer instead of by humans. The humans design an adder, but the software picks where to place it and how to arrange the gates.

I took a couple undergrad classes in CE, which makes me dangerous, but can we be that far away from building a macro system to convert small bits of imperative code into FPGA logic?

Re: How FPGAs work, and why people will buy them (2013)

#10

Post by sfifs » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 4:12 PM UTC

davemp wrote: post #5

> FPGAs are a programmable platform, but one designed by EEs for EEs rather than for programmers. This is the problem with FPGAs. Their performance and utility is not really disputed. Working with them is so un-ergonomic that it's frankly embarrassing. The EE world is notoriously closed/proprietary making it incredibly difficult to explore novelty or customize tooling to suit specific needs. The situation is reminisc…

Actually I recently bought a Spartan 7 based FPGA board after taking the nand2tetris course and started playing with the free version of the Vivado suite.

If your complaint is principle based on the stuff being non free software, then it holds. If it's on usability - not sure it does. While lengthy, the process of compiling and getting something running on silicon didn't seem any more complicated than Grade/Maven etc all based Android Studio builds.