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Design of FPGA and PLDs

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garimella

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Hi
This is a novice question. Is it possible to design an FPGA from scratch? Are there literatures available? How about open source FPGA programming software?
 

What are you asking?
You want to build your own chip? or just write firmware for an existing chip?

There is no open source FPGA compilation software - the vendors lock down their own platforms, and each platform have different architectures. There are 3rd party synthesis tools, but the fitting/assembly has to be done in vendor tools. They can all be scripted via TCL though.
As for writing code - most people just use a text editor like Notepad++ or Emacs (if they dont want to use the vendor tool's text editor).
 

Yes I am asking whether we can develop our own FPGA?
 

If you want to develop an FPGA chip yourself, you will need :
1. Deep understanding of integrated circuit design
2. HDL knowledge
3. Verification Knowledge (like UVM, SVA/PSL)
4. A few hundred thousand dollars for the tool licences, then at least the same again for the nun-refundable ASIC masks (plus spare change for the inevitable re-spin/bug fixes)
5. Probably a million man hours to spend on development.

Basically, if you are asking this question on the public forum, then the likely answer is "NO".

If this is out of your reach, then you may want to buy one of the existing FPGA dev boards that can be bought for less than $100 to do your work on.
 

Hi,

What benefit does your FPGA have vs the existing FPGAs?

Klaus
 

It was a theoretical question. I found open source codes for processors but not for FPGA.
 

garimella said:
It was a theoretical question. I found open source codes for processors but not for FPGA.
Click to expand...

A processor and FPGA are completely different things.
A processor is something designed to run software. It can be written in an HDL to be implemented as an ASIC or on an FPGA.
An FPGA is a matrix of LUTs, registers, memories and DSP blocks that are used to implement logic. So it would usually be designed at a lower level than a processor. But an FPGA can be programmed with HDL that forms a CPU.
 

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