upsilon/doc/programmers_manual.md

Upsilon Programmers Manual. This document may be distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL v3.0 (or any later version), or under the CC BY-SA 4.0.

This document is aimed at maintainers of this software who are not experienced programmers (in either software or hardware). Its goal is to contain any pertinent information to the devlopment process of Upsilon.

You do not need to read and digest the entire manual in sequence. Many things will seem confusing and counterintuitive, and will require some time to properly understand.

FPGA Concepts

Upsilon runs on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). FPGAs are sets of logic gates and other peripherals that can be changed by a computer. FPGAs can implement CPUs, digital filters, and control code at a much higher speed than a computer. The downside is that FPGAs are much more difficult to program for.

A large part of Upsilon is written in Verilog. Verilog is a Hardware Description Language (HDL), which is similar to a programming language (such as C++ or Python).

The difference is, is that Verilog compiles to a piece of hardware that deals with individual bits executing operations in sync with a clock. This differs from a piece of software, which is a set of instructions that a computer follows. Verilog is usually much less abstract than regular code.

Regular code is tested on the system in which it is run. Hardware, on the other hand, is very difficult to test on the device that it is actually running on. Hardware is usually simulated. This project primarily simulates Verilog code using the program Verilator, where the code that runs the simulation is written in C++.

Instead of strings, integers, and classes, the basic components of all Verilog code is the wire and the register, which store bits (1 and 0). Wires connect components together, and registers store data, in a similar way to variables in software. Unlike usual programming languages, where code executes one step at a time, most FPGA code runs at the tick of the system clock in parallel.

To compile Verilog to a format suitable for execution on an FPGA, you synthesize the Verilog into a low-level format that uses the specific resources of the FPGA you are using, and then you run a place and route program to allocate resources on the FPGA to fit your design. Running synthesis on its own can help you understand how much resources a module uses. Place-and-route gives you timing reports, which tell you about major design problems that outstrip the capabilities of the FPGA (or the programs you are using). You should look up what "timing" on an FPGA is and learn as much as you can about it, because it is an issue that does not happen in standard software and can be very difficult to fix when you run into it.

Once a bitstream is synthesized, it is loaded onto a FPGA through a cable (for this project, openFPGALoader).

Recommendations to Learners

Gisselquist Technology is the best free online resource for FPGA programming out there. These articles will help you understand how to write good FPGA code, not just valid code.

Here are some exercises for you to ease yourself into FPGA programming.

• Write an FPGA program that implements addition without using the + operator. This program should add each number bit by bit, handling carried digits properly. This is called a full adder.
• Write an FPGA program that multiplies two signed integers together, without using the * operator. The width of these integers should not be hard-coded: it should be easy to change. What you write in this is something that is actually a part of this project: see boothmul.v. You do not (and should not!) write it just like Upsilon has written it.
• Write an FPGA program that communicates over SPI. For simplicity, you only need to write it for a single SPI mode: look up on the internet for details. There is an SPI slave device in this repository that you can use to simulate an end for the SPI master you write, but you should write the SPI slave yourself. For bonus points, connect your SPI master to a real SPI device and confirm that your communication works.

For each of these exercises, follow the complete "Design Testing Process" below. At the very least, write simulations and test your programs on real hardware.

Organization

Upsilon uses LiteX and ZephyrOS for it's FPGA code. LiteX generates HDL and glues it together. It also forms the build system of the hardware portion of Upsilon. ZephyrOS is the kernel portion, which deals with communication between the computer that receives scan data and the hardware that is executing the scan.

LiteX further uses F4PGA to compile the HDL code. F4PGA is primarily made up of Yosys (synthesis) and nextpnr (place and route).

Setting up the Toolchain

The toolchain is primarily designed around modern Linux. It may not work properly on Windows or MacOS. If you have access to a computational cluster (if you are at FSU physics, ask the Physics department) then you should set up the toolchain on their servers. You will be able to compile things on any computer with an internet connection.

TODO

Design Testing Process

Simulation

When you write or modify a verilog module, the first thing you should do is write/run a simulation of that module. A simulation of that module should at the minimum compare the execution of the module with known results (called "Ground truth testing"). A simulation should also consider borderline cases that you might overlook when writing Verilog.

For example, a module that multiplies two signed integers together should have a simulation that sends the module many pairs of integers, taking care to ensure that all possible permutations of sign are tested (i.e. positive times positive, negative times positive, etc.) and also that special-cases are handled (i.e. largest 32-bit integer multiplied by largest negative 32-bit integer, multiplication by 0 and 1, etc.).

Writing simulation code is a very boring task, but you must do it. Otherwise there is no way for you to check that

1. Your code does what you want it to do
2. Any changes you make to your code don't break it

If you find a bug that isn't covered by your simulation, make sure you add that case to the simulation.

Test Synthesis

Once you have simulated your design, you should use yosys to synthesize it. This will allow you to understand how much and what resources the module is taking up. To do this, you can put the follwing in a script file:

read_verilog module_1.v
read_verilog module_2.v
...
read_verilog top_module.v
synth_xilinx -flatten -nosrl -noclkbuf -nodsp -iopad -nowidelut
write_verilog yosys_synth_output.v

and run yosys -s scriptfile. The options to synth_xilinx reflect the current limitations that F4PGA has. The file xc7.f4pga.tcl that F4PGA downloads is the complete synthesis script.

Test Compilation

Hacks and Pitfalls

The open source toolchain that Upsilon uses is novel and unstable.

F4PGA

This is really a Yosys (and really, really, an abc bug). F4PGA defaults to using the ABC flow, which can break, especially for block RAM. To fix, edit out -abc in the tcl script (find it before you install it...)