Welcome back to Exploring FPGA Graphics. Last time, we played Pong against our FPGA; this time, we revisit displays signals and learn about palettes and indexed colour. In this series, we explore graphics at the hardware level and get a feel for the power of FPGAs. We’ll learn how screens work, play Pong, create starfields and sprites, paint Michelangelo’s David, simulate life, draw lines and triangles, and animate characters and shapes. Read more

Welcome back to Exploring FPGA Graphics. Last time, we got introduction to FPGA graphics; now, we’re ready to put our graphical skills to work with some simple demos. I hope these examples inspire you to create your own demos and improve your hardware design skills. This post was last updated in March 2022. In this series, we explore graphics at the hardware level and get a feel for the power of FPGAs. Read more

Welcome to your November news from Project F. This month’s new blog post covers multiplication with DSPs, plus there are loads of interesting links and an FPGA advent calendar. I’m also happy to report that the main Project F repo projf-explore passed 200 stars on GitHub. Want to get in touch? Share your thoughts with @WillFlux or find me on 1BitSquared Discord. The Project F blog is resting over the winter. Read more

Welcome back to my series covering mathematics and algorithms with FPGAs. I was initially going to look at real numbers in this part, but Project F is known for its practical, hands-on tutorials. So, I decided to dedicate a post to a topic usually ignored by introductory guides: multiplication with DSPs. We’ll cover real numbers in the next post. This post was last updated in December 2021. New to the series? Read more

Welcome to October’s update from Project F. This month, we build a rainbow from circles, learn more about numbers in Verilog, find a UART in the library, and hear about exciting FPGA projects from Ben Blundell and Rob Shelton. Want to get in touch? Share your thoughts with @WillFlux or find me on 1BitSquared Discord. Read the November 2021 news or see the news archive. Filled Circles I’ve added a new filled circle drawing module to the Verilog Library. Read more

Project F news is your monthly bowl of FPGA goodness with tasty tips and links from other developers mixed in. This month I began a new series on Maths & Algorithms, added a new rotation demo, and started a new blog on computing history. September also saw the release of Yosys 0.10 and the sad death of Sir Clive Sinclair. Want to get in touch? Share your thoughts with @WillFlux or find me on 1BitSquared Discord. Read more

Welcome to my new series covering mathematics and algorithms with FPGAs. Whatever hardware you’re designing, you’re likely to be working with numbers. This series begins with the basics of Verilog numbers, covers simple mathematics, including division and CORDIC, before looking at more complex algorithms, such as data compression. This post was last updated in February 2022. In this first post, we examine how integers (whole numbers) are represented and dig into the challenges of signed numbers in Verilog. Read more

Project F news is your monthly bowl of FPGA goodness with tasty tips and links from other developers mixed in. August saw my first circle drawn, new graphics designs for iCEBreaker, improved build instructions, and the first draft of a new post covering animated graphics and double buffering. Want to get in touch? Share your thoughts with @WillFlux or find me on 1BitSquared Discord. Read the September 2021 news or see the news archive. Read more

Welcome back to Exploring FPGA Graphics. In the final part of our introductory graphics series, we’re looking at animation. We’ve already seen animation with hardware sprites, but double buffering gives us maximum creative freedom with fast, tear-free motion. We’ll be making extensive use of our designs from 2D Shapes, so have a look back at that post if you need a refresher on drawing shapes. This post was last updated in February 2022. Read more

Project F news is your monthly update on the FPGA project, with tasty tips and links from other developers thrown in. This month, iCE40 SPRAM takes centre stage, filled triangles add graphical goodness, we learn that Linux will fit on an iCEBreaker, and discover FPGAs on Mars. If you have any comments, share your thoughts with @WillFlux or find me on 1BitSquared Discord. Read the August 2021 news or see the news archive. Read more