this is my first post (after introducing myself in the New Users forum). I hope my question isn't inappropriate here...
TL;DR How feasible is it to program e.g. an Artix-7 (or Spartan-6) at a "low level" wrt. instantiation, placing and routing etc?
I'm just a hobbyist, indeed electronics/programming is only one of my hobbies... so I don't actually *need* to use FPGAs. I'd be doing it for fun/satisfaction/distraction. Unfortunately, I suffer from severe depression (not Corona-related) so I'm looking to *avoid* a particular sort of frustration. (ie. fighting the tools).
I've started reading some books (a VHDL textbook, FPGA Prototyping by Verilog examples -- Pong Chu, Intro To FPGA Book -- Mike Field etc) and gone through a bunch of Xilinx user guides, and even a couple of YouTube videos and technical EE papers...
... and I'm worried that FPGAs might not be a good fit for me :-(
In reading about whether to learn VHDL or Verilog I've come across the ADA vs C language analogy. With regard to automatic floor-planning I've come across the "trying to overcome bad coding by using an optimizing compiler" analogy... etc.
Now, I'm weird. For small projects I actually *prefer* ARM assembly code to C, let alone Java or, God forbid!, C++. In electronics I prefer to place components and route circuits manually.
So, I guess I'd be wanting to instantiate things rather than have the software infer them and have more, rather than less (or no) control over placing and routing. I understand that for big projects or large teams you just want/need to get something that meets requirements, that can be ported to a different device, or maintained by someone else. But that's not the situation I'm in.
From what I've read so far I get the impression that one might need to fight the software, endlessly rewriting one's HDL in the hope that the software will eventually infer whatever it is one actually wanted... Is this still the case? Or am I 20 years out of date? :-)
On top of all that, I'm on a Mac, so to even install/try out the Xilinx software, I'd need to dig out my Linux laptop...
Question
chris235
Hi,
this is my first post (after introducing myself in the New Users forum). I hope my question isn't inappropriate here...
TL;DR How feasible is it to program e.g. an Artix-7 (or Spartan-6) at a "low level" wrt. instantiation, placing and routing etc?
I'm just a hobbyist, indeed electronics/programming is only one of my hobbies... so I don't actually *need* to use FPGAs. I'd be doing it for fun/satisfaction/distraction. Unfortunately, I suffer from severe depression (not Corona-related) so I'm looking to *avoid* a particular sort of frustration. (ie. fighting the tools).
I've started reading some books (a VHDL textbook, FPGA Prototyping by Verilog examples -- Pong Chu, Intro To FPGA Book -- Mike Field etc) and gone through a bunch of Xilinx user guides, and even a couple of YouTube videos and technical EE papers...
... and I'm worried that FPGAs might not be a good fit for me :-(
In reading about whether to learn VHDL or Verilog I've come across the ADA vs C language analogy. With regard to automatic floor-planning I've come across the "trying to overcome bad coding by using an optimizing compiler" analogy... etc.
Now, I'm weird. For small projects I actually *prefer* ARM assembly code to C, let alone Java or, God forbid!, C++. In electronics I prefer to place components and route circuits manually.
So, I guess I'd be wanting to instantiate things rather than have the software infer them and have more, rather than less (or no) control over placing and routing. I understand that for big projects or large teams you just want/need to get something that meets requirements, that can be ported to a different device, or maintained by someone else. But that's not the situation I'm in.
From what I've read so far I get the impression that one might need to fight the software, endlessly rewriting one's HDL in the hope that the software will eventually infer whatever it is one actually wanted... Is this still the case? Or am I 20 years out of date? :-)
On top of all that, I'm on a Mac, so to even install/try out the Xilinx software, I'd need to dig out my Linux laptop...
Link to comment
Share on other sites
7 answers to this question
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.