Nuovo acquisto: la mia prima board di sviluppo basata su una FPGA Altera Cyclone.
Ovviamente una board basata su Cyclone è assolutamente obsoleta ma dato il costo veramente irrisorio della board stessa e l’inclusione di un programmatore JTAG collegabile via USB (USB Blaster) mi sono deciso ugualmente all’acquisto.
Dopotutto le FPGA mi sono piaciute fin dalla prima volta in cui ho avuto a che fare con loro (la prima FPGA in cui mi sono imbattuto è stata una Spartan IIIE della Xilinx, poi mi sono trovato a tornare indietro verso la Spartan ma questa è un altra storia).
Visto che ho iniziato con Xilinx sono contendo di provare anche Altera.
Torniamo allora alla descrizione della board.
Una coppia di regolatori di tensione (1.5V e 3.3V), presa d’alimentazione, pulsante di accensione, pulsante di reset, due dip switch da 6, quattro pulsanti, sei led, un generatore di clock a 50MHz, un MAX3232 per la necessaria translazione di livello per avere una porta seriale, un buzzer, un display a led da quattro cifre, una memoria ECSP1 per rendere possibile usare la board in modalità stand-alone, senza bisogno di avere un pc disponibile per programmarla, un DS1302 (Trickle-Charge Timekeeping Chip), header per JTAG, header per AS, un header per collegare un classico display LCD alfanumerico e un header per collegare un classico display grafico da 128*64 pixel, purtroppo non adatto a questo display già in mio possesso. In più, tanti, tanti altri header per entrata/uscita digitale: questa è una FPGA, avere tanti ingressi/uscite è più che naturale.
La board da sola però non è molto utile. Serve del software per poter far fare qualcosa alla board. Altera mette a disposizione la versione web di Quartus II, il suo sistema di sviluppo per FPGA e CPLD.
Visto che il Cyclone è un componente obsoleto, non è più supportato dalla corrente versione di Quartus II, ma sono disponibile le versioni precedenti. La versione più recente che supporta la famiglia Cyclone è la 11.0sp1 mentre le versioni successive hanno abbandonato il supporto per questa particolare FPGA.
L’installazione avviene senza problemi anche se è piuttosto ingombrante, con qualche gigabyte da scaricare ed installare.
Finita l’installazione è tempo di lavorare.
Nel mio caso questo significa rispolverare VHDL.
A questo proposito voglio citare Free Range VHDL: bel testo sul VHDL, Open Source. Una delle migliori risorse per la sua completezza.
Con un manuale sottomano, la board pronta e funzionante e il software correttamente installato è tempo di iniziare a descrivere hardware e fare qualcosa di interessante con questa board.
La prima cosa che farò sarà provare i led e i pulsanti. In VHDL, naturalmente.
Seconda cosa, scrivere sempre in VHDL un divisore, dividendo il clock un numero sufficiente di volte al fine di poterlo vedere facendo lampeggiare un LED. Magari riuscirò anche a capire per quale motivo i progettisti della board hanno deciso di far entrare il clock sul pin 92 (clk3) della FPGA, tralasciando, a quanto pare, il blocco PLL incluso nel Cyclone.
A questo punto toccherà al MAX232. Approfittando della sua presenza e del connettore già bello pronto potrò collegare ad un terminale e finalmente vedere qualcosa meno limitato e limitante dei led.
Mi piacerebbe arrivare a questo punto in breve tempo, anche se il tempo manca sempre. Dopo, non ci sono limiti se non la fantasia e, chiaramente, le doti del Cyclone.
A.C.
I can understand about the time deayls. I earned my AS in 1999, and ended up finishing my BS in 2007. However, there was a slight difference. I was active duty military and ended up being stationed in Japan from 1999-2003. I didn’t restart the BS until 2005. Now I’m looking at going back for my MS. However working in a field that I didn’t have Practice in has been very helpful. Currently I design H/W and S/W for industrial metal detectors and am learning quite a bit about coil wound antennas and pulse inductive prospecting. Hopefully I can work back through the DSP and make those classes a little bit easier.
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