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Re:Logik: Open-source FPGA toolchain by Zero ASIC by qiqitori on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @09:35PM (#39925601)
Lattice Semiconductor's iCE40 sort of qualifies, no? (Maybe getting a little old now?) Cheap and fully supported by an open-source toolchain and really easy to use. (Unless a GUI is needed.)
Re:Logik: Open-source FPGA toolchain by Zero ASIC by codebje on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @11:26PM (#39926237)
iCE40 was a good start, but boards based around that family are getting hard to find. For those who are building their own PCB and want an FPGA on it with minimal fuss, the iCE40HX1K comes in a TQFP-144 package and is still readily available from the usual retailers for such things. Nice for hobby PCB makers, but not a current-day solution for easy FPGA projects for software devs.

IMO Sipeed Tang is the product most like Arduino for FPGAs: boards ready to program with a USB cable and a range of plug-in-and-go peripheral boards available. The Gowin IDE is free but not open, while the yosys+nextpnr open toolchain claims full support for the FPGAs on the Tang boards.

LiteX makes speccing out an FPGA core much more approachable for someone from a software development background, too, so LiteX plus a Tang Nano 20k and you can do all sorts of awesome things without too much trouble.

Re:Logik: Open-source FPGA toolchain by Zero ASIC by MegaDeKay on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @11:59PM (#39926392)
> while the yosys+nextpnr open toolchain claims full support for the FPGAs on the Tang boards

Citation needed. The GoWin FPGAs on these boards are still very much a work in progress. YRabbit is doing most of the reverse engineering on them, it seems, with the DSP blocks only implemented a couple weeks ago.

https://twitter.com/YLRabbit/status/1768935258903503248

Re:Logik: Open-source FPGA toolchain by Zero ASIC by codebje on Thursday April 04, 2024 @02:52AM (#39927316)
https://github.com/YosysHQ/apicula

Project Apicula says "currently supported boards are ... [list of mostly Tang boards]" without qualification.

I wouldn't be surprised to discover that it actually is qualified support, though. Do you think the actual support is low enough that one should avoid those boards for now?

Re:Logik: Open-source FPGA toolchain by Zero ASIC by MegaDeKay on Friday April 05, 2024 @10:01AM (#39942486)
It is definitely qualified support.

Whether there is enough for you right now depends on your needs, plus the knowledge that the support will continue to mature as time goes on. A good indicator of what you can do with the open source tools right now is checking out this link [0] at Lushaylabs. It has a fantastic series of practical hands on and useful articles like making your own CPU and driving HUB75 panels. Plus "This series uses a completely open source toolchain which makes development open / fast and lightweight". There is also /r/GowinFPGA on Reddit.

https://learn.lushaylabs.com/tang-nano-series/