this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2025
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Hi all,

Just got this E40HX8k FPGA. My goal is to start off small and build an 8bit adder or something and then work up to building an interface for some old Soviet core memory I have.

Does anyone have any book recommendations?

My brain vomit questions un-researched questions:

  • Is Verilog like spice but text and not analog?
  • What happens if you try to load a sketch to your board which exceeds its capabilities what happens? Can you fry it?
  • How much do you need to account for the physical layout of the board? Do you need to “move” a small sketch closer to the memory to reduce latency or does the sketch have some compilation which squishes it into the best region?
  • is there a way to visualize the final physical sketch (where it is on the board) (probably board specific.

Anyway thanks!

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[–] j4k3@piefed.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I have a board around somewhere, an ice40 I think. I never did figure out the open source tool chain. At one point I was messing with CPLDs, I think it was the max 240 chip, but just following tutorials with altera's software. That was too long ago to be any help at all. I don't even remember the website, but there are places where people have posted cores and peripherals that can be imported. I found those examples helpful to look at.

[–] crimsonpoodle@pawb.social 2 points 3 days ago

Oh that’s cool I might have to start with someone else’s known working sketch then