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0 pointstverbeure6y ago0 comments

"From a correctness point of view you don’t program for FPGAs at all. You configure them."

You program what needs to go into the FPGA by writing RTL, then you synthesizes the RTL, then you configure them at powerup time.

This subject of this topic is about using .NET as an alternative to traditional RTL languages. That's programming. If you're going to call that configuration, you're overloading a term "configuration" in a way that nobody in the FPGA industry ever does.

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SlowRobotAhead6y ago

I disagree.

Programming is setting the knobs on the machine, working with an existing structure to get a job done.

Configuring an FPGA is laying out the machine. You are designing the hardware gates and building the structure.

You could argue it’s pedantic, sure. But I think that’s 90% of the reason people struggle with FPGA is they look at it like programming and not hardware design. I was explained this difference by people in the FPGA reverse engineering industry.

So, no to the topic, I still see zero reason to use a .NET programming language to shoehorn how you want mostly non-procedural hardware logic to function. Other than to say you did it and write an article about it.

tverbeureOP6y ago

When you program in C, the knobs that you’re setting are the bits of a file or flash memory.

When your program in Verilog, the knobs are the bits of a bunch of LUTs.

Insisting to call it configuration is not only pedantic. It is also not used this way by anybody else. And it’s confusing because it overloads a term that is used universally by all FPGA tools.

It’s hard to see how that makes it any different than just wrong.

Imagine the following conversation in isolation:

“Hey John, what are doing today?” - “I’m configuring my FPGA!”

Ask anyone in the field what is being described above. I guarantee you that nobody would answer that John is writing RTL.

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