ES 4 Lab 0: Introduction to icestudio + FPGA

[@ObijuanCube]

Nice job! Thanks a lot! 😀️ Just wanted to point out that the workflow can be simplied a little bit just by pressing only the upload option. It will automatically build the design and upload it. The workflow could be: edit your circuit, click on upload. Edit again, click on uplaod...

[@epat4706]

I've just started using FPGA's and your video series will be a great help. I don't get the 4 pulldown menus on my version 0.10-rc1

[@botsnlinux]

Do you mean the "Basic", "Bit", "Logic", and "Mux" pulldowns? To get the part menus, you may need to load a "collection" (Tools > Collections > Add). I haven't used the most recent version of icestudio, so this may have changed.

[@epat4706]

Hi Steven, thanks for getting back to me - I'll try searching some more options

[@byronwatkins2565]

Probably, the FPGA output buffer would burn out before the LED.

[@nicogaming6814]

Very nice job 👍👍👍

[@bennguyen1313]

It's looks like Lattice has embraced (or at least not opposed) the open-source synthesis / place-and-route tools that generate Lattice bitstreams! Any thoughts on how these open-source tools (ex. IceStudio / SymbiFlow / YosysHQ ) compare to the commercial offerings? For example, can the older (2004) Lattice Products listed on the website (ex. Design Software > 1553 Encoder/Decoder ) be freely-downloaded, and synthesized with either tool? I'm interested in starting with a working IP, going thru the design flow software, to finally testing on hardware!

[@botsnlinux]

The open-source toolchains only work for the iCE40-series parts, as far as I know. There is active work on the ECP5 and other parts, but they're not fully supported. In terms of synthesizing Verilog/VHDL to hardware, the open-source toolchain is just as good if not better than the commercial tools (or at least, you're a lot more likely to get support from the open-source community than from Lattice as a free user). But in terms of integrating pre-packaged IP, doing power analysis, and other more specialized stuff, the Lattice tools have the advantage.