The formation of a new non-profit organization, the Open-Source FPGA Foundation (OSFPGA), has been announced. This organization aims to develop, promote, and create an environment for collaborative development of open hardware and software solutions related to the use of Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), which allow for reprogramming of functionalities after the chip has been manufactured. Key binary operations (AND, NAND, OR, NOR, and XOR) in such chips are implemented using logic gates (switches) that have multiple inputs and a single output, with the configuration of connections between them changeable programmatically.
Among the founders of the OSFPGA organization are several prominent researchers in FPGA-related technologies, representing companies and projects such as EPFL, QuickLogic, Zero ASIC, and GSG Group. Under the auspices of this new organization, a set of open and free tools for rapid prototyping based on FPGA chips and support for electronic design automation (EDA) tools will be developed. The organization will also oversee the collaborative development of open standards related to FPGAs, providing companies with a neutral platform for sharing experiences and technologies.
It is expected that thanks to the activities of OSFPGA, chip manufacturers will be able to eliminate some engineering processes in FPGA production, end solution developers will receive a ready-made customizable software stack for FPGAs, and collaborative work on new high-quality architectures will be established. It is noted that the open tools provided by the OSFPGA organization will maintain the highest quality standards, meeting or exceeding industrial requirements.
The main goals of the Open-Source FPGA Foundation are:
- To provide resources and infrastructure for developing a set of tools related to FPGA hardware and software.
- To promote the use of these tools through the organization of various events.
- To ensure support, development, and openness of the toolkit for researching advanced FPGA architectures, as well as related software and hardware developments.
- Maintaining a directory of publicly available FPGA architectures, design technologies, and board designs sourced from publications and expired patent descriptions.
- Preparing and providing access to training materials that help build a community of interested developers.
- Simplifying interaction with chip manufacturers to reduce costs and shorten testing and validation times for new FPGA architectures and equipment.
Project-related open tools:
- OpenFPGA — an electronic design automation (EDA) toolset for FPGA that supports core generation based on Verilog descriptions.
- 1st CLaaS — a framework enabling the use of FPGA to create hardware accelerators for web and cloud applications.
- Verilog-to-Routing (VTR) — a toolset that generates the configuration of the selected FPGA based on Verilog descriptions.
- Symbiflow — a development toolset for FPGA solutions based on Xilinx 7, Lattice iCE40, Lattice ECP5, and QuickLogic EOS S3.
- Yosys — a framework for synthesizing Verilog RTL for typical applications.
- EPFL — a collection of libraries for developing logic synthesis applications.
- LSOracle — an extension of EPFL libraries for optimizing logic synthesis results.
- Edalize — a Python tool for interacting with electronic design automation (EDA) systems and generating project files for them.
- GHDL — a compiler, analyzer, simulator, and synthesizer for the VHDL hardware description language.
- VerilogCreator — a plugin for QtCreator that turns the application into a development environment for Verilog 2005.
- FuseSoC — a package manager for HDL (Hardware Description Language) code and a utility for abstracting assembly for FPGA/ASIC.
- SOFA (Skywater Open-source FPGA) — a set of open FPGA IP (Intellectual Property) created using the Skywater PDK and the OpenFPGA framework.
- openFPGALoader — a utility for programming FPGA.
- LiteDRAM — a customizable IP Core for FPGA with a DRAM implementation.
Additionally, it is worth mentioning the Main_MiSTer project, which allows simulating hardware from old gaming consoles and classic computers using the DE10-Nano FPGA board connected to a TV or monitor. Unlike running emulators, the use of FPGA enables the recreation of the original hardware environment, on which existing system images and applications for old hardware platforms can be run.
Source: opennet.ru
