panologic-g2 VS chisel

I've used SpinalHDL extensively for hobby projects, which is a close cousin of Chisel. The way it works there is by defining ClockDomain "areas" that contains logic for a particular clock/reset.

Signals can freely travel between different such areas, but unless you explicitly mark those signals as asynchronous, the Verilog code generator will fail with cross-domain clock violations. It's amazing.

Here's an example of an APB bridge with clock domain crossing: https://github.com/tomverbeure/panologic-g2/blob/ulpi/spinal....

The module takes the 2 domains as object parameters: https://github.com/tomverbeure/panologic-g2/blob/9225b86011a...

Here's the code that lives in the APB clock domain: https://github.com/tomverbeure/panologic-g2/blob/9225b86011a...

This is the destination clock domain: https://github.com/tomverbeure/panologic-g2/blob/9225b86011a...

And this is the pulse synchronizer between them: https://github.com/tomverbeure/panologic-g2/blob/9225b86011a...

I have reverse engineered many FPGA boards.

If you are okay with using a Spartan 6 device and ISE WebPACK, a Panologic G2 has 100k LUT6s, extra RAM and flash, Ethernet, USB, and two DVI/HDMI outputs, for under $50. Here's a github page, about developing for one.

If you send me a bitstream, I can try running it, but it will need to provide a way to communicate with the outside world, e.g. over the USB or Ethernet ports. There are hardware details here: https://github.com/tomverbeure/panologic-g2

I picked up a Pano Logic G2 for cheap and need to get a JTAG programmer for it. I'd like to use the Altera toolset. Is there an inexpensive JTAG programmer that I can use for this? I'm not at all familiar with JTAG and having a hard time figuring out what I'd miss out on by going with an off brand programmer.

My first instinct was to ask "Does this play well with CIRCT?" And thankfully they answer that right away in the README.

I'm personally of the opinion that there is a LOT of room for improvement in the hardware design tooling space, but a combination of market consolidation, huge pressure to meet deadlines, and an existing functional pipeline of Verilog/VHDL talent is preventing changes.

That's not to say "Verilog/VHDL are bad", because clearly they've been good enough to support nearly all of the wonderful designs powering today's devices. But it is to say, "the startup scene for hardware will continue to look anemic compared to the SaaS scene until someone gives me all of the niceties I have for building SaaS tools in software."

A huge amount of ideas (and entire designs) start off as software sims, which enables kernel/compiler engineers to start building out support for new hardware before it's manufactured.

There is some interesting work going on at SiFive building hardware with Chisel[1], as well as some interesting work lead by a professor at William and Mary to improve simulations[2].

1: https://www.chisel-lang.org

2: https://github.com/sarchlab/akita

Inspired by Scala. Which can do a whole lot more, and worse. The currently biggest competitor to decades old hardware description languages is a Scala DSL.

Already mentioned Chisel: https://www.chisel-lang.org/

I'm also a hobbyist. There are a number of alternative HDLs out there, and as hobbyists we can deviate more from the mainstream of (System)Verilog and VHDL if we desire, though you'll still need to be able to read them. In the past I've done Verilog, but lately I've been using SpinalHDL and have been really enjoying it. Its close relative Chisel also makes appearances in the RISC-V space.

What are your thoughts on other HDLs like Chisel or BlueSpec when it comes to better type checking?

I started playing with FPGAs and HDLs a couple years ago with no hardware design background (I'm mostly a software architect/engineer) and in the end found that a "higher-level" HDL suited me better.

I chose Chisel (https://www.chisel-lang.org/) an HDL based on Scala (technically a Scala DSL) which can provide many facilities to hardware generation.

I'd highly advise looking into it although also knowing Verilog helps a lot.

But some go further and ask "what if when we add a soldering station on top of it?"

In recent years Chisel HDL, RISC V, and SiFive came out of their architecture group, to name a few.