Category Archives: icestorm

FPGA Design From Top to Bottom

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[Roland Lutz] gave a talk about FPGA design using the free tools for Lattice devices at the MetaRheinMainChaosDays conference this year. You can see the video below. It’s a great introduction to FPGAs that covers both the lowest-level detail and some higher level insight. If you’re getting started with these FPGAs, this video is a must-see.

[Roland] starts with the obligatory introductory material. He then jumps into an actual example before zooming back out to look at the internal details of the Lattice FPGA. For instance, this FPGA supports multiple bitstreams, so you can switch between different “programs” on the …read more

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E-ink Display Driven DIY

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E-ink displays are awesome. Humans spent centuries reading non-backlit devices, and frankly it’s a lot easier on the eyes. But have you looked into driving one of these critters yourself? It’s a nightmare. So chapeau! to [Julien] for his FPGA-based implementation that not only uses our favorite open-source FPGA toolchain, and serves as an open reference implementation for anyone else who’s interested.

Getting just black and white on an E-ink display is relatively easy — just hit the ink pixels with the same signal over and over until they give up. Greyscale is made by applying much more nuanced voltages …read more

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Lattice iCE40 FPGA Configured by Linux Kernel

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The Linux kernel recently added support for loading firmware into an FPGA via the FPGA Manager Framework. [OpenTechLab] has built a driver for the Lattice iCE40 FPGA (same chip used on the iCEStick and other development boards). One attraction to the iCE40 is there is an open source toolchain called iCEStorm.

Even if you aren’t specifically interested in FPGAs, the discussion about Linux device drivers is good background. The principles would apply to other drivers, and would definitely apply if you want to write another FPGA loader.

The example uses a Raspberry Pi connected to an evaluation board. A cheap …read more

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Lattice iCE40 FPGA Configured by Linux Kernel

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The Linux kernel recently added support for loading firmware into an FPGA via the FPGA Manager Framework. [OpenTechLab] has built a driver for the Lattice iCE40 FPGA (same chip used on the iCEStick and other development boards). One attraction to the iCE40 is there is an open source toolchain called iCEStorm.

Even if you aren’t specifically interested in FPGAs, the discussion about Linux device drivers is good background. The principles would apply to other drivers, and would definitely apply if you want to write another FPGA loader.

The example uses a Raspberry Pi connected to an evaluation board. A cheap …read more

Continue reading Lattice iCE40 FPGA Configured by Linux Kernel→

Give Your RPi a Cool FPGA Hat

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Need additional, custom IO for your Raspberry Pi? Adding an FPGA is a logical way to expand your IO, and allow for high speed digital interfaces. [Eric Brombaugh]’s Icehat adds a Lattice iCE5LP4K-SG48 FPGA in a package that fits neatly on top of the Raspberry Pi Zero. It also provides a few LEDs and Digilent compatible PMOD connectors for adding peripherals. The FPGA costs about six bucks, so this is one cheap FPGA board.

The FPGA has one time programmable memory, but can also be programmed over SPI. This allows the host Pi to flash the FGPA with the latest …read more

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The Perfect Storm: Open ARM + FPGA Board

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Playing around with FPGAs used to be a daunting prospect. You had to fork out a hundred bucks or so for a development kit, sign the Devil’s bargain to get your hands on a toolchain, and only then can you start learning. In the last few years, a number of forces have converged to bring the FPGA experience within the reach of even the cheapest and most principled open-source hacker.

[Ken Boak] and [Alan Wood] put together a no-nonsense FPGA board with the goal of getting the price under $30. They basically took a Lattice iCE40HX4K, an STMF103 ARM Cortex-M3 …read more

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