mist-devel.mist-board/tutorials/led

LED

This is the verilog pendant to a "Hello World" for the MIST FPGA board.

This code lets the "Core LED" on the board blink once a second.

This example was published as part of the first article in a series of three in the german computer magazine c't:

http://www.heise.de/ct/ausgabe/2015-21-Mit-FPGAs-Retro-Chips-implementieren-Teil-1-2811231.html

Getting started

This example can be used under Windows as well as under Linux.

First of all you need to download the quartus web edition for your operating system from https://dl.altera.com/?edition=web Please make sure you download vesion 13.1 as newer versions don't support the Cyclone III FPGA anymore.

Once installed Quartus will allow you to import the led.qar archive. Use the qar import by selecting "Restore Archived Project..." from the "Project" menu.

Selecting "Start Compilation" from the "Processing" menu will create the led.rbf file. Putting this under the name "core.rbf" on sd card and booting the mist from that card should result in the FPGA led blinking once a second.

Using signaltap

Signaltap is a very useful tool when developing cores. It allows you to observe signals directly on the running FPGA.

You need a cheap usb blaster cable to use this feature. Searching for "usb blaster" on ebay or amazon should give plenty of matching results.

The blaster cable is connected to the PC via USB. For more information see the Wiki. You also need to add a matching connector to your MIST board. Althoug the board is prepared for this connector you still need to get it soldered to the board.