Introduction to FPGA Part 1 - What is an FPGA? | Digi-Key Electronics

[@davidrush4908]

In college in the late 80's i was involved with a custom processor design implemented in an FPGA. On paper the design was perfect. In the sim it worked perfectly. In hardware nothing worked. It took alot of lab time to figure out that that there was a significant race condition in a subset of the processor that the professor had given us to use. He passed my fix along to everyone else. Moral of the story: Don't trust the sim blindly.

[@ericfort940]

this is what we get when the electronics labs produce bunches of simulator and screen junkies, dont require students to actually BUILD anything (physical) where real magic smoke gets released, and one never actually learns which end of a soldering iron is which by burning their fingers a few times!

[@davidrush4908]

@@ericfort940 it's a well known fact that all electronic components contain some unknown quantity of smoke and you have to test to see how much. My personal record was a LARGE transistor that was sending about 18 to 20 kW to the load. I bumped something on the drive circuit and BAM. Sounded like a grenade going off. Good thing it was in a thick plexiglass box, because there was shrapnel embedded in it. This was in an elective Electronics class that covered practical feedback stabilization.

[@FloydWolverton]

@@ericfort940 I agree that JUST simulation as the ONLY learning vehicle is a bad way to teach/learn. An appropriate mix of hands-on physical and simulation experimentation produces better-rounded graduates. As for soldering irons and common sense, I will always recall asking a student to hand me a soldering iron. She said "Are you sure?" and I said yes...she placed the HOT end into my open hand. We BOTH learned something that day! 🙂

[@TylerSimsMechanical]

Shawn, you are the man. Your Linux, RTOS, and FPGA series are immensely helpful. Thanks!

[@bloodstyle]

Oh yeah, was waiting for this. There's plenty of FPGA tutorials on youtube but Digi-key's videos are so much easier to follow!

[@mumbaiverve2307]

Yes, they explain it in a manner which is practical and linearly laid out !

[@tonywilson4713]

I've never seen this guy before but I'd agree on your assessment. I don't know why this was even recommended but it'll be one of those little thigs I file away for future reference. I do industrial control systems, so I am on the end user side of FPGAs. I have done embedded controls in the past so this is very useful on basic understanding of what can be done.

[@YoutubeBorkedMyOldHandle_why]

This is perfect. A couple of years ago, I decided I needed to conquer FPGAs. So I bought a bunch of boards, watched a lot of videos, learned many things, dabbled with projects, etc. But I kept getting distracted. It's time to dive back in and finish the job. Happily, one of the boards I bought was the Lattice board you have highlighted, which thus far I've barely touched. This has been a source of some frustration, since most good tutorials I've come across invariably use different tools than I have. This time I'm prepared. I like your attitude. Most people spend gobs of time explaining code and running testbenches, rarely ever implementing it on actual hardware. Important of course, but as you suggest, it's a lot more fun wiring things up and seeing the hardware actually do something. Thank you. I look forward to your next video.

[@clems6989]

Digi-key has been around. Helping designers and engineers forever...

[@SidewaysCytlan]

I've been wanting to get into FPGAs for a while, and this series is right up my alley! I especially appreciate the use of an open source toolchain, as the proprietary tools that plague the FPGA landscape is why I've held back on getting into FPGAs for so long. Looking forward to the next entry in the series.

[@squirlmy]

something parallel to that, but I can't say for sure how related it is to being not-FOSS, is how ridiculously large and bloated FPGAs are. I forget if it's Intel's Quartus Prime (Lite Edition is 6.8 GB!?!?) or Xilinx, where the "Windows version" was actually an entire virtual machine running the IDE on Linux. Without a lot of transparency. I mean, if we need a virtual machine for Windows, just tell us! We're adults, we can handle disappointment! It isn't just that they're proprietary, but plagued by all of the problems of proprietary software gone wrong.

[@hjups]

That was one of the most concise and easy to understand overviews that I have seen! I will probably point students to this video as a supplement. One minor tweak to something said though regarding speed. A FPGA won't necessarily be faster than a CPU, but it will have higher throughput. That was mentioned, but then in the summarization you said "speed for specific computations", where it should be "throughput for specific computations" - most STM32s can run faster than a FPGA, but they take many cycles to compute one result while a FPGA can compute one result per cycle (with super-deep pipelines). Another use case for FPGAs is latency (which has implications for real-time applications) - often a FPGA can intake, process, and react to events faster than a CPU. Most of the 3D LIDAR systems used in self driving cars rely on FPGAs to minimize their feedback loops.

[@ShawnHymel]

Good points, thank you for the distinctions!

[@Henrix1998]

What does "faster" mean in this context if not throughput?

[@hjups]

​@@Henrix1998 Short answer, clock speed. Long answer, that would depend on what you are trying to measure. Most likely it will be a combination of clock speed, latency, and throughput. For example, we say that CPUs are fast but not that GPUs are fast. GPUs can handle much higher throughput than a CPU, but at a much higher latency, and lower clock speeds. To take advantage of them (and a FPGA for that matter) you need to have enough data to cover the latency (i.e. a large enough batch). For streaming applications (like signal processing), your data size can be effectively infinite when capturing from real-time sensors / ADCs. But if you only want to perform the computation on a smaller dataset (potentially sample size 1), it will be much faster to do that on a CPU, because you can't hide the latency. Another case where the latency matters is with feedback loops in the computation, though that again depends on the nature of the problem being solved (how tolerant is the loop, and what computation is being done).

[@jimziemer474]

He never said an FPGA would be faster. He said it may or may not be faster.

[@floridaman964]

@@hjups Lots of good info man thank you. You are a genius. 🙏

[@Ali-wf9ef]

As a FPGA engineer I appreciate you introducing our world to others. Keep up the good work

[@hanspeter2210]

As an FPGA engineer it's very interesting to get an understanding what you are actually dooing

[@jeffreymadrid2288]

Much respect ali, subscribed , would love to keep in touch with someone like you 🙏

[@damage.390]

Hello, how can i contact you?

[@MacGiollaCostigan]

Thoughts on Peraso? Ticker PRSO seems very undervalued after watching nvidia go crazy

[@kohein404]

Please I want to know that FPGA and ASIC are analog or digital design processors ?

[@antonyalen2745]

You guyz have the best electronics tutorials ever, better than my University degree. Thanks

[@unrushed_crown]

Shawn Hymel is like the Steve Irwin of electronics. Thanks to you and Digikey for making these tutorials!

[@corrupt1238]

Who that???

[@SmoochyTea]

I love his bow tie. Shawn taught me a lot of what I know of pcb design.

[@ShawnHymel]

Aw! Thanks :D

[@mini-momentclips]

I was searching for complete tutorial series for FPGA , got the best one ❤🎉

[@SBA_poiko]

Stumbled onto this channel. Was glued for the entire duration. Can't wait for part 2!

[@tehmudjinkhan2207]

The RTOS series helped me a lot. Now I can get into FPGAs!

[@nidhinbenny7975]

I hope this series goes on to show how to create a custom FPGA PCB design eventually - but even if not, its really cool to get to see this stuff.

[@wawan_ikhwan]

My day is not ruined, After All I thought I must build logic gate from scratch with using transistor while I can program it with FPGA

[@sj6986]

Thanks for this series of videos. Very easy to understand and follow for someone with primarily a software background.

[@rickh6963]

I've wanted to do a little FPGA experimentation for a few years but have been spending my hobby time with SBCs and microcontrollers. Thanks for giving me the push to start on another adventure. My iCEstick will be here on Monday so I'm itching for the next episode! Thanks Digi-Key and Shawn!

[@rickh6963]

WOW! FedEx kicked ass and delivered my iCEstick on Friday! 3 days early!! Now I can't wait for the next episode.

[@WistrelChianti]

This starts exactly where I needed it to start and goes exactly where I needed it to go

[@Dinkleberg96]

I'm really excited about this series! Shawn's work is amazing, can't wait!

[@williamhart4896]

Clean overview of the how to make a FPGA do what you want it to do

[@tanjiro3285]

These serieses worth a million dollars 💙💙💙

[@calfee62]

Board ordered. Looking forward to playing along at home!

[@gfrommer]

What an amazing video!!! I'm very excited to see the next video! I was really impressed by the LED cubes in this first video demonstrating the throughput of the FPGA versus a regular CPU. I want to make one of those.

[@thalanayarmuthukumar5472]

Very good introduction which while explaining the concepts narrows down choices - e.g. use Verilog, use APIO) which facilitates hands on learning. Also, the list of parts needed that is provided, even specifying a USB extension cable, will have you well prepared for gaining the most from this series. Just finished this episode and looking forward to hands on in the next video in the series. Thanks Shawn for an excellent video

[@jonnafry]

Excellent relaxed presentation ... looking forward to this series.

[@justaszakarauskas6068]

I found those tutorials really useful, it is more than enough get a start-kick. Thank you

[@robosilo]

Really looking forward to the follow up videos to this series. This first one was very dense but not overwhelming.

[@dinoscheidt]

Incredible teaching skills. Incredible.

[@justingreen8006]

Cool! I'm going to digi-key to purchase the ICEstick now. Looking forward to the upcoming tutorial videos! Thanks.

[@fcf8269]

Very good video, looking forward to see the next videos in the series

[@patrickbyamasu1353]

A very good introduction to FPGA, I look forward to watching more videos that are coming in this series of videos on Designing FPGA. I hope they will be very helpful for my understanding studies as a computer engineering student.

[@danmarquez3971]

EXCELLENT tutorial! THANK YOU! I look forward to the rest of tutorials!

[@jayprakashbhele9442]

shawn my man once again perfeect video for yet another acadmic topic

[@joymakerRC]

I was gonna try this but i gotta learn a few more things before i get here , I accidentally bought a VHDL book and I dont return books but looking at it I realized i was Still in the STM32 early stages. I get there. Thanks bro.

[@AhmadAsmndr]

I was waiting for this tutorial since a long time thank you very much ...

[@accountname1651]

Thanks, I learned a lot; clear language, good presentation, I really like what you do here

[@electronichome1153]

Finally found the iCE40 and can't wait to start this course! Thanks Shawn!

[@TonyDaExpert]

As a computer engineer I got a lot of HDL and design logic and even microprocessor design experience in classes we used FPGAs but only for specific assignments and simple projects. I have one more class on Modern Processor architecture but I think I am getting to where I could modify a cpu to add specific assembly instructions. I should get my own fpga and play with it so this knowledge doesn’t go to waste lol

[@ShawnHymel]

Same...we barely touched FPGAs and HDL in my classes, and this was back in 2003. My second computer architecture course was all theory! Please let me know if you do modify a softcore CPU--I'd love to know which core you use!

[@philipacovington]

FPGAs are really great for those interesting in retro-computing or learning how a CPU works. I am implementing Ben Eater's 8-bit computer in an FPGA in a series of videos on my channel for anyone interested. Very cool stuff!

[@pramitchaudhury1821]

You are awesome Shawn you always come with the greatest contents thanks so much 🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@DanielRamos-zf2pw]

Finally, i love playing with my sidi fpga for retro computing, but i would really like to start making stuff for it.

[@MuthannaAttyah]

Thank you Shawn for the amazing introduction. Love your videos since your early days at SparkFun. please keep producing more.

[@alfcnz]

8:55 one again, Verilog was a hardware description language which has been deprecated for its successor.

[@matanlaza89]

Great explanation! Already waiting for the rest of the series

[@benzflynn]

Good intro to this stuff. Something a lot of us need to know for the future in CPUs and microcontrollers.

[@lorhancosta622]

Great presenting! I'm really looking forward to the next video and I'm def buying the fpga used in the series.

[@trishayun1212]

What a great video clip which is very useful

[@233kosta]

The Miniware DS213 mini DSO is built around an FPGA. SUUUUUUUPER cool stuff!

[@souris771]

I did not know that I can use FPGA, thanks for explain.

[@chrisstanford3652]

Clear, concise and informative 👍

[@dymastro788]

Yes great! Shawn and Digikey keep it up with the great videos

[@PhG1961]

What an excellent overview and explanation ! I'm looking forward to see the next episode !

[@robertphilip1832]

I can't tell how glad i am ... thank You! thank You!

[@katemoon7476]

This like free college classes. Thanks

[@nidhinbenny7975]

In my opinion, even better because they have a more practical hands-on approach :)

[@aekhv]

Thanks a lot! Can't wait for the next part!

[@JSambrook]

Really a great introduction. Strong work!

[@ashishchristian9377]

Superbly explained....

[@eamonhannon1103]

Excellent topic Sean .

[@djsbriscoe]

Is there a more recent FPGA development board that can be used with this tutorial? The iCEstick is now expensive. Can you recommend anything cheaper? Thanks.

[@ShawnHymel]

The iCEBreaker boards from 1 Bit Squared should work. I'd love to get an iCEBreaker Bitsy, but it's always sold out.

[@MkmeOrg]

This is REALLY good. Well done

[@vaniaeli4392]

Parabéns... Ótima iniciativa, muito obrigado.

[@aronhighgrove4100]

VHDL is inspired by Pascal syntax. Since you mention Verilog is inpired by C, it's a useful addition.

[@youssefbensoudane7799]

Thank you for all your videos please I would like to buy a FPGA to learn what inexpensive FPGA can I buy to follow your tutorial

[@digikey]

Hi, here is where you can find the evaluation board that was featured in the video: www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/lattice-semiconductor-corporation/ICE40HX1K-STICK-EVN/4289604

[@matthewvenn]

Great work Shawn!

[@ShawnHymel]

Thanks, Matt!

[@ngvn4898]

Please do some example with Verilog. It is really useful for me because I learn embedded system with Verilog in this winter semester. Thank you so much

[@ShawnHymel]

Coming soon ;)

[@vaniaeli4392]

Muito Obrigado por democratizar esse conhecimento ❤

[@AlexanderBukh]

i have an ICEstick, what would be the interesting beginner projects i can use it for? i mean that would fit in it and use a significant part of it's capabilities

[@nathanjohnson4028]

Shawn, I would love to see you tie into your ongoing Yocto series. The Xilinx Zynq 7000 series FPGA support Linux and it might be cool to branch into making your own peripherals and making drivers for it in Yocto Linux (Maybe a simple PWM peripheral?)

[@AlpineTheHusky]

Not a single downvote. Impressive

[@thesnax9177]

Hi, Shawn! I really want to get started with your guide, but the FPGA you use it a bit expensive in my country (Japan). Yen is REALLY weak right now. Are there any other compatible LATTICE FPGAs?

[@ahriman46]

3:49 where can I buy these cubes? Theyre pretty

[@LittleRainGames]

FPGAs are out of stock, thats what they are.

[@rjordans]

That's one of the ways they are similar as microcontrollers

[@233kosta]

Look again this year. Ordered mine off sparkfun yesterday

[@andrewcool4587]

High demand.

[@huyphanquang1780]

Please ask Cryptor Currency Miner 😂

[@rude_tech]

I have a job interview this week. If you could go ahead and shoot, edit, and upload all videos in this series in the next 2 hours that would be greeeeaaaat. 😅

[@Fleurlean4]

Did you move on to the next step?

[@vinaysv6096]

I am very excited to learn FPGA programing I need to bye one of It and can I know the exact name of development kit, as I am new for this.

[@alfcnz]

7:52 Verilog does no longer exist. Its replacement is called SystemVerilog.

[@bennguyen1313]

Any thoughts HDL converters, like Silice, Bluespec / chisel-lang HDL , SpinalHDL? Or Migen/nMigen/MiSoC->LiteX... which appears to be a python to HDL converter? FuseSoC IP? Would love to see 1) APIO multi-fpga-platform toolbox support other hardware (ex. Intel Nios, Microsemi Arm-M4, Quicklogic RIsc-V), JTAG/OpenOCD programmers, etc 2) Tips on setting up a build environment , preferably a Docker Container with all the tools for Lattice, Xilinx, etc 3) an led-blink tutorial that instantiates a FuseSoC IP (ex. ValentyUSB, CPU : LatticeMico32, Microblaze) 4) Synthesizing (SymbiFlow, Yosys ) and Simulating the logic/timing WITH (litescope, SignalTap, Chipscope) and WITHOUT hardware (Renode?, Modelsim) 5) Place-and-Routing and programming (nextpnr, etc) 6) Building, Downloading and Debugging or stepping thru the CPU CODE

[@msbanda2123]

Awesome title 👏

[@bertbrecht7540]

Looking forward to following along but a bit worried that toolchain you described will fill up my development workstation with a rats nest of applications and directories that are difficult to keep track of not to mention keep up to date. But I am going to do it anyway.

[@ShawnHymel]

The toolchain does install a good number of programs, but I found them relatively easy to manage and a lot less cumbersome than most of the vendor IDEs out there :)

[@rubetz528]

Hey there! I want to go through this course but the stick version of the ICE40 board is out of stock. Could anybody suggest a not so expensive alternative?

[@electronichome1153]

Aliexpress. But be carefull - my first order in December 2021 was lost, my second in January'22 was sent to another address in another country, in another continent (?!). Then the board was out of stock for 7 months. Now is possible to find it there, but first contact the seller, to be sure that the board is available.

[@boratnighty8]

This a really good video cheers mate

[@cyberspider78910]

I am Ex-enthusiast not knowing what is FPGA. Now I am ready to battle as this video rekindled the sleeping giant.

[@115maxx]

I would really love to work alongside this series, but sadly the ICE40 FPGA is not available on Digi-Key. At least not in europe...

[@TarnPeko]

The button I need to prepare are 4 pins buttons, right?

[@fredkilner2299]

In Verilog start with: `default_nettype none otherwise when you have a typo, Vivado at least maybe other tools too, will create a new signal and assign it 1'b0 aka 0 instead of catching the error. I always had that problem and didn't know about `default_nettype none then one day I walked in a class at the hacker dojo I wasn't enrolled in and the teacher prof guy started with that. When loading a design you can touch the FPGA with your finger to see if it is getting hot which is a sign your IO pads are assigned wrong and fighting. Maybe you let it assign I/O pads automatically so it is trying to drive a ground trace with '1' or something. Xilinx at least so much as I know doesn't allow tri-state buses or latches so everything is clocked (not 100% sure about that) so tristate buses are automatically changed to MUXes.

[@ShawnHymel]

Great tip, thanks!

[@razvanvlad607]

Can anybody help me? I'm a beginner and I'm looking for a FPGA board to start with. I don't know which board is the most suitable for me. Nexys A7 is way too expensive. My options for the time being are: Basys 3 artix-7, Arty A7/S7 or Cmod A7/S7 (breadboardable). I need a good price quality ratio. And also I don't know if the breadboardable boards are enough powerful and capable. Are they worth it? Or the extra money for the other boards like Basys and Arty is worth it more? Thank you very much!

[@smde1]

an FPGA is possibly described as - semi-soft hardware that allows you to construct a custom application specific micro-controller/micro-processor

[@lidarman2]

Shawn, did you work at Spark fun doing this stuff?

[@ShawnHymel]

I did :)

[@surflaweb]

Interesting dear. I can do parallel tasks with fpga?

[@Alacritous]

At 8:30 That H in VHDL is doing a LOT of heavy lifting there.

[@Henrix1998]

Isn't Vivado free as well? And it does everything the separated tools do

[@DrKnow65]

RC10GT, as classy as a bow tie!

[@KangJangkrik]

Is it possible to develop two MCU cores inside FPGA? Thanks!

[@ShawnHymel]

Yes, assuming you have enough resources (e.g. logic cells) to do so.

[@KangJangkrik]

@@ShawnHymel interesting, i'm going to try that on spare time

[@MichaelOfRohan]

So is this how people plan to emulate the 6502?

[@mazenas3443]

please complete FPGA Course

[@Ohem1]

When you listed the design flow it got really complicated. I was considering getting into FPGA but everywhere I kept seeing dividing opinions on what to focus on. VHDL or SystemVerilog, industry standard vs modern language, C or Python etc. Geez I’d like to stay with one language but also be within the industry expectations. I still see education programs staying with VHDL and C, instead of C++.

[@tomg0]

Great video

[@youme101ptg]

Love these videos

[@pablovicentico]

Excellent!!

[@JeromeDemers]

well I hope digikey gets those iCEstick back in stock! They should definitely check that out before releasing those videos.