Brewing Up a myStorm FPGA board on the kitchen table (opens in new tab)

(folknologylabs.wordpress.com)

65 pointsmonsonite9y ago27 comments

27 comments

I love all the FPGA boards coming out but I really wish the software was better. Lattice uses the same synthesizer as Xilinx which is well known to be completely user hostile (will silently optimize huge swaths of code because it doesn't like them). The least headaches come from Altera but that's not a high bar...

zerohp9y ago

This chip from Lattice is supported by icestorm. It is the only open source FPGA tool chain.

http://www.clifford.at/icestorm/

rvense9y ago

And I think you'll find this is the exact reason the iCE40s are showing up in so many hobbyist projects.

I'm at my hackerspace right now. There's three people with HX8K evaluation boards at this table alone (I've got two, actually). None of us have even downloaded the Lattice tools.

I've got the HX8K eval board doing text over VGA at 1280x1024 with a simple home-etched PCB that plus into it and some very naive code, hope to hit 1920x1080... It's a lot of fun. The toolchain has some niggles, but overall it's extremely pleasant and I'm so happy it exists. I've been wanting to work with programmable logic for a few years since getting into electronics, but I've just not got along with the Xilinx and Altera tools.

2 more replies

ElaineB9y ago

You might consider Clifford Wolf's Project Ice Storm - an open source tool chain for several Lattice devices - consisting of YoSys Synthesiser and Arachne Place and Route.

sargun9y ago

I think with Intel starting off on FPGAs, we might see some sanity. It's clear that those FPGAs can compute with GPGPU workloads, and depending on their adoption, we might see similar tooling.

makomk9y ago

The Xilinx synthesizer is certainly interesting. I had some fun porting a design someone else had created for I think Synplify to that a few years back, because it went and replaced a state machine crossing two clock domains with one that wasn't safe for that purpose.

nikofeyn9y ago

the national instruments myRIO board has probably the lowest barrier to entry for FPGA programming and also microcontroller programming since it uses a zynq processor, both of which are programmed with LabVIEW. it also runs a real-time linux OS. but it isn't available to the general public, being reserved for academic use. i am not for sure why.

joshu9y ago

This would be better if there was a link to the actual product.

papower9y ago

They have an intro to the myStorm board at https://folknologylabs.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/a-perfect-st...:

"myStorm is the perfect combination of a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero, a $1, 32-bit ARM microcontroller and a $5 versatile low power FPGA – an open hardware platform – brought to life with innovative open source software."

ElaineB9y ago

In response to Joshu - I don't think this is a Kickstarter Campaign - I get it's two guys in the UK doing this off their own backs - and in record time - design on laptop to working board prototype in less than 2 weeks - with the pcbs made in Shenzhen China, in under a week. There on Twitter under #myStorm - if you want to check them out

1 more reply

cottonseed9y ago

Unfortunately IceStorm has only reverse engineered the 1K and 8K, not the 4K.

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ElaineB9y ago

In what way would it be better? Two guys doing something cool - what do you want? It's all opens source - you go make one in 10 days!

joshu9y ago

Btw, calm the hostility - I was complaining about the context-free blog post. The project seems interesting.

joshu9y ago

It's just a blog post without context or details on the project? Etc

CamperBob29y ago

If a tree grows in the forest but no one sees it, is it there at all?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

27 comments

zombees9y ago

zerohp9y ago

This chip from Lattice is supported by icestorm. It is the only open source FPGA tool chain.

http://www.clifford.at/icestorm/

rvense9y ago

And I think you'll find this is the exact reason the iCE40s are showing up in so many hobbyist projects.

I'm at my hackerspace right now. There's three people with HX8K evaluation boards at this table alone (I've got two, actually). None of us have even downloaded the Lattice tools.

2 more replies

ElaineB9y ago

You might consider Clifford Wolf's Project Ice Storm - an open source tool chain for several Lattice devices - consisting of YoSys Synthesiser and Arachne Place and Route.

sargun9y ago

I think with Intel starting off on FPGAs, we might see some sanity. It's clear that those FPGAs can compute with GPGPU workloads, and depending on their adoption, we might see similar tooling.

makomk9y ago

nikofeyn9y ago

joshu9y ago

This would be better if there was a link to the actual product.

papower9y ago

They have an intro to the myStorm board at https://folknologylabs.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/a-perfect-st...:

ElaineB9y ago

1 more reply

cottonseed9y ago

Unfortunately IceStorm has only reverse engineered the 1K and 8K, not the 4K.

2 more replies

ElaineB9y ago