MEP EP#94

Published: Nov. 15, 2017, 6:22 p.m.

Al Williams and the Field Programmable Gate Arrays

  • FPGA Mega Podcast with Al Williams:
    • What is an FPGA?
      • Field-programmable gate array
      • Bunch of logic gates and sea of gates, we tell them what to do
      • Writing hardware description of what it will do - writing requirements language, You’re describing requirements
      • Using VHDL or veralog, syntax is close to the C programming language
    • Why not a microcontroller?
      • Advantage with FPGA = parallel hardware, not a brain with steps and time running out
      • People use FPGAs to get fixed deadline on when processes get finished
      • 100 arduinos on an FPGA - next HackADay Article
    • Mike “Hamster” Field
    • Do you need hardware?
      • No, you can do things via simulation.
      • EDA Playground
        • Can play around for free and don’t have to create login
    • IceStick/IceStorm
      • IceStick is a Lattice FPGA dev board: good starter tool
      • IceStorm is an open source development tool chain
    • HackADay Learning FPGA Links

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Tags: 100 Arduinos, Al Williams, EDA Playground, electronics podcast, Field Programmable Gate Arrays, FPGA, IceStick, IceStorm, MacroFab, macrofab engineering podcast, MEP, Podcast