Article

FPGAs for Beginners

The Path From MCU to FPGA Programming

There are many low-cost microcontroller development boards available, but FPGAs remain expensive. For applications that need higher computational performance (e.g., AI) or higher speed I/O (e.g., high-speed camera, high-speed display, fast ADC or DAC), it is desirable to find small and affordable FPGA boards. Let's delve into the thrilling world of FPGAs for beginners!

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Materials

Trenz Electronic — CYC1000 board

Intel Quartus Prime Design Software

fpga4fun

NandLand

VHDLwhiz

Joel’s list of FPGA boards

Discussion (0 comments)

kenski 11 months ago

I downloaded Intel Quartus lite. I was able to do the simple project in the magazine article. I downloaded Arrow Electronics manual and tried to do the project given there.

I tried to configure the PLL, after screen 6 the configuration screens disappeared. I tried to configure one of the devices, Quartus quit working and told me it did.

Where do I file these complaints to get this thing fixed?

I'm glad it's free to try, I'm not sure it's worth purchasing if it won't support the simple example in the Arrow manual.

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kenski 11 months ago

Trying to submit a service request on the Intel site doesn't seem to work either. Any thoughts?

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kenski 11 months ago

I looked more closely in the Arrow manual, that suggests using version 18.1, the current version is 23.1, which may explain some of the issues.

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kenski 11 months ago

Intel's website recommends every use version 23.1 as the latest secure upgraded version. Has anyone done any work with Quartus?

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J.F. Simon, Elektor 11 months ago

Hi! What specific Arrow manual are you talking about? Can you please provide a link? I think, although Intel recommends, of course, the latest version, there's nothing wrong with using a previous version for testing. With more experience, you may eventually find out why that problem occurs! And it wouldn't be the 1st time when a "new version" breaks something :-) hopefully it will be fixed one day, for now you can use the version that just works!

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kenski 11 months ago

Here's the link.

https://shop.trenz-electronic.de/trenzdownloads/Trenz_Electronic/Modules_and_Module_Carriers/2.5x6.15/TEI0003/REV02/Documents/CYC1000%20User%20Guide.pdf

I hear what you are saying, I'm just tired of debugging other people products that haven't been properly tested and don't work. I can't count the number of times I've had to do that!

Since Trenz Electronics posted the link, you would think they would have an interest in being sure the software works, otherwise they are going to have many unhappy customers who will be sorry they bought the upcoming CYC1000 they are producing.

Elektor should have a similar interest.

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kenski 11 months ago

What's really aggravating is when Quartus stopped working and said it had halted, I clicked on the link get fix or service request, and it goes to a blank web page.

I'm uninstalling 23.1, and my anti-virus is throwing all kinds threats blocked suspicious activity posts..

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kenski 11 months ago

I installed 18.1, entered the model from the Arrow manual, and got the following error:

Error (332000): invalid command name "get_ports{CLK12M}"
while executing
"unknown_original get_ports{CLK12M}"
("eval" body line 1)
invoked from within
"eval unknown_original $cmd $args"
(procedure "::unknown" line 7)
invoked from within
"get_ports{CLK12M}"
invoked from within
"create_clock -name CLK12M -period 83.333[get_ports{CLK12M}]"
(file "TOP.sdc" line 2)
As far as I can tell I entered the command correctly in the .sdc file. Any suggestions?

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kenski 11 months ago

It turns out the entries required to be manually entered into the .sdc file have some formatting requirements relative to spacing that are not defined anywhere. I tinkered with those and it appears the compilation was successful.

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kenski 11 months ago

I changed the voltage to 3.3-V LVTTL, compiled again, everything looks OK. Now to find a way to buy a board.

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kenski 11 months ago

I created the project for the d flip flop in the Elektor article.

Why do the symbols that I see on the screen look scrunched up, the text/labels look like they are partially obscured?

In the Arrow project, the information inside the clock oscillator block is also scrunched up and very hard to read.

What is going on here? The examples in the article and the Arrow manual are much more clear and readable.

Help!

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kenski 11 months ago

This is what one of the block diagram screens looks like on my laptop (Dell D16 Windows 11 home), it's pretty bad

Arrow Manual Quartus block diagram.pdf (324kb)

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kenski 11 months ago

This is what the block diagram of the article D flip looks like on my PC, it's not much like the manual. Does anyone know who I can talk to about this?

Quartus DFF block diagram screen.pdf (65kb)

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J.F. Simon, Elektor 11 months ago

Hi. It seems to be a compatibility problem between your Operating System and Quartus.

Check this page: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/programmable/support-resources/design-software/os-support.html#tab-blade-1-2

it says in Table 3 that 18.1 is not compatible with Windows 11

Even if you had a version of Quartus supposedly compatible with Windows 11, you wouldn't be alone to have display problems, see : https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-Quartus-Prime-Software/Wrong-font-size-in-Quartus-options-are-not-visible/td-p/1267888 and https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-Quartus-Prime-Software/quartus-system-console-font-too-small-windows-11-monitors-2496/td-p/1495269 for example

You should maybe try again with Quartus 22.1 on your W11 machine, and if there are still problems, I'd suggest trying again still 22.1 but this time on Windows 10 (either on another PC or in a virtual machine)

I understand your frustration, but please note that the problems you are experiencing are independent of what was published in the article... Software compatibility problems (and bugs not solved by software providers) have been around for decades, it's just the unfortunate reality. Don't give up, good luck again! All the best, JFS

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