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

Packaging up code using functions

Often, we'll have code that we will be reusing within the same module or that's common to a group of modules. We can package this code up in a function:

function [4:0] func_addr_decode(input [31:0] addr);
  func_addr_decode = '0;
  for (int i = 0; i < 32; i++) begin
    if (addr[i]) begin
      return(i);
    end
  end
endfunction

Here, we created a function called func_addr_decode that returns a 5-bit value. function takes a 32-bit input called address. Functions can have multiple outputs, but we will not be using this feature. To return the function's value, you can assign the result to the function name or use the return statement.

Creating combinational logic

The two main ways of creating logic are via assign statements and always blocks. assign statements are convenient when creating purely combinational logic...