kmod's blog

This is part 5 of my Building a Processor series, where I try to build a processor on an FPGA board.  This post is about adding some simple counter functionality to the push buttons. Previous: using a dcm.   I now have a working display, but my board right now has no state to it.  I can…

This is part 4 of my Building a Processor series, where I try to build a processor on an FPGA board.  This post is about using a DCM to manage the clock frequency. Previous: seven-segment display.   In the previous post, I created a simple driver for the display, which uses the externally-provided clock to count time.…

This is part 3 of my Building a Processor series, where I try to build a processor on an FPGA board.  This post is about getting the seven-segment display to work. Previous: first circuit. This post is going to be pretty short; there are many great resources out there that give step-by-step descriptions for building the circuitry…

This is part 2 of my Building a Processor series, where I try to build a processor on an FPGA board.  This post is about getting all the tools working, and getting a very basic circuit programmed onto the FPGA. Previous: getting started.   At this point, I have a Nexys 3 board, and have Xilinx ISE…

This is part 1 of my Building a Processor series, where I try to build a processor on an FPGA board.  This post is about selecting+buying a development board, and what we’ll get with one.   At this point, I’ve hopefully gotten you uncontrollably excited about buying and using an FPGA, and now you’re wondering…

One of my current projects is to build a Python compiler — nothing to show yet, but the project is going well.  In the course of doing it, I brought up the idea of “compiling” some of the Python to an FPGA instead of to machine code (or in the case of my compiler, LLVM…