Book Image

FPGA Programming for Beginners

By : Frank Bruno
5 (1)
Book Image

FPGA Programming for Beginners

5 (1)
By: Frank Bruno

Overview of this book

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have now become a core part of most modern electronic and computer systems. However, to implement your ideas in the real world, you need to get your head around the FPGA architecture, its toolset, and critical design considerations. FPGA Programming for Beginners will help you bring your ideas to life by guiding you through the entire process of programming FPGAs and designing hardware circuits using SystemVerilog. The book will introduce you to the FPGA and Xilinx architectures and show you how to work on your first project, which includes toggling an LED. You’ll then cover SystemVerilog RTL designs and their implementations. Next, you’ll get to grips with using the combinational Boolean logic design and work on several projects, such as creating a calculator and updating it using FPGA resources. Later, the book will take you through the advanced concepts of AXI and show you how to create a keyboard using PS/2. Finally, you’ll be able to consolidate all the projects in the book to create a unified output using a Video Graphics Array (VGA) controller that you’ll design. By the end of this SystemVerilog FPGA book, you’ll have learned how to work with FPGA systems and be able to design hardware circuits and boards using SystemVerilog programming.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
1
Section 1: Introduction to FPGAs and Xilinx Architectures
3
Section 2: Introduction to Verilog RTL Design, Simulation, and Implementation
9
Section 3: Interfacing with External Components

Project 10 – introducing external memory

Up until now, we've been using internal Block RAM (BRAM) or distributed RAM. These types of memory are very fast. BRAMs can be accessed in a single clock cycle up to the maximum frequency (fmax) of the device given certain constraints. Look up table memories (LUTRAMs) are a little more flexible in that they can be used asynchronously. Both types of memory are very convenient for small storage, lookup tables, fast memory for things such as cache, and if you have enough for a design, keeping costs and complexity down.

There are many external memory types available for use in designs. Looking just at synchronous Dynamic RAMs (DRAMs) that are still available, we can see how the performance has changed with each generation:

Figure 8.1 – External DRAM performance

Looking at the preceding chart, the first question would be what is the performance of the internal BRAM versus the external memory? What are...