By on January 27, 2014

We will finish work on our pointer instructions for the CPU. After that, we will start work on an SPI interface for SRAM. I do no expect that we will finish, but we should at least get the state machine coded up. The SPI module will not be specific to the CPU, but will eventually be used in the CPU. Please make sure to bring a breadboard with jumpers!!

Required Items:

  1. Laptop with Xilinx ISE installed. Please ensure you already have the ISE installed!! We will not have time to wait for the install process to complete (it usually takes 15-30 minutes). Make sure to download the ISE Design Suite for your OS.
  2. Some Xilinx Spartan 6 or greater FPGA development board (must be Xilinx!!). We prefer the Mojo or Digilent Nexys3.
  3. USB cable for your FPGA dev board.
  4. Breadboard (full size!)
  5. Jumpers
  6. LEDs for debugging (there are loads at the space if needed)

We are to a point in the class where anyone wishing to join will need to e-mail fpga@unallocatedspace.org. The reason being that we will need to verify that you know VHDL well, and have a development board already. Because of the cost of FPGA dev boards, we will not have extras. If you have questions about what board to get, please e-mail fpga@unallocatedspace.org.

We have recently been given ‘academic’ status from Digilent Inc ( http://www.digilentinc.com ). This means that the instructor can purchase boards from Digilent at the academic price. This discount will only apply to people who are attending the class regularly! Since the space runs off of donations, we would like to mention that the recommended donation for this class is $10. It is by no means a requirement! Attendance to the space, and this class, is 100% free to all!


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