ULX3S Open Source FPGA Development Board

I have made no secret of the fact that I am interested in FPGA technology and have been trying to relearn VHDL for some time.  I am also very keen on using open source programs and development tools.

Recently (sometime in the last couple of years) I heard about project IceStorm by Clifford Wolfe.  Mr Wolfe has reverse engineered Lattice Semiconductor's bit-stream files and written a software tool called Yosys which is used to convert verilog files into mapping files which can then be loaded onto a lattice semi-conductor FPGA.  At the moment proprietary FPGA development tools are very large pieces of software which take a lot of space on a hard disk, are feature heavy and not free to use (require licence files), often unsupported (Xilinx WEBise anyone) and I found difficult to use.  I'm not saying they aren't good but if I can use open source software tools I will...I like the idea behind the licensing models.  I'll donate what I can afford and assist wherever I can.

The Yosys Website is here: http://www.clifford.at/yosys/

Project ICE Storm: http://www.clifford.at/icestorm/

Until recently I didn't have a Lattice Semiconductor FPGA development board but that changed when I was offered a ULX3S open source board from the very clever guys at the Radiona Hackspace.  I had come into contact with these gentlemen when I was trying to learn to use the Elbert V2 and Mimas V2 Xilinx based FPGA development boards.  They developed a very cool piece of kit to make use of the open source tools for teaching a Digital Logic course at their local university.

The ULX3S with 3D printed case and buttons!

The board arrived in very good order with a 3D printed case, buttons and some pre-built examples.  I had a quick play with it and intended to write up my experiences and get started on using it.  That was probably this time last year...I am attempting to get back into blogging my experiences, trials and tribulations outside of work as I find it quite useful and I find it forces me to improve on my electronics and development skills.  Anyway...back to the board:

The board is in my opinion, very well designed and implemented.  I particularly like the addition of the ESP32 so files can be uploaded over wifi.

Here are some photos of the board:

The top side of the PCB with buttons, microSD card and display

The underside of the PCB with the ESP32 module

Here is the website for the project: https://radiona.org/ulx3s/

Here is a Hackaday write up: https://hackaday.com/2019/01/14/ulx3s-an-open-source-lattice-ecp5-fpga-pcb/#more-340565

I'll be honest, I bought the board to support the project, I haven't got a project or use in mind.  To be even more honest I still want to re-learn a hardware description language so that when I do have a project in mind I'll be able to make use of the technology.  I do have ideas for a piece of instrumentation but that is a way off and requires a lot more than just the FPGA!

The first thing I did with the board was use it to emulate an Amiga 500 computer using the pre-loaded Minimig project which came ready to play on the board.  All I had to do was grab some amiga disk images and I could play all the games from my misspent youth.  Retro gaming with FPGA devices is a very popular hobby as the hardware is not being emulated but actually realised within the fabric of the device which leads to a more realistic experience.

Playing Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 and Utopia are fun diversions but not quite what I had in mind for the device.

The open source tools all appear to be for linux operating systems only at the moment so I installed Linux Mint on my main PC and got to work installing all of the pieces of software needed from project Ice storm.  

My LinuxFu is not that strong so I may have messed this up somewhere along the way.  I know I have downloaded, and compiled the following pieces of software:

IceStudio
prjtrellis
Yosys
nextPNR

I was then pointed towards the apio project by a colleague and downloaded the windows version of that software along with all the other bits and pieces needed by following the instructions here:

https://github.com/ulx3s/fpga-odysseus

It installed fine although I would ensure that if following the instructions that you don't upgrade the apio software.

Once presented with the command prompt by loading the ConEmu.exe program it is pretty easy to get started:

This screen brought my back to my days of the DOS prompt.  I know the linux command prompt is fairly similar but I just don't use linux enough to be comfortable with it...I am slowly improving though...

I made a folder called Alex and then a sub folder called ulx3s, you could use any folder names you like.  I then copied two files into the folder:

apio.ini - found from the folder C:\msys64\src\fpga-odysseus\tutorials\01-Basics\01-LED
ulx3s_v20.lpf - found from the folder C:\msys64\src\fpga-odysseus\tutorials\01-Basics\01-LED

The apio.ini file is a text file that tells the apio software everything needed to prepare files for upload to the ulx3s board and ulx3s_v20.lpf is the constraints file for the board, it tells apio and all of the other software which pins are connected to what and where between the FPGA and the external peripherals.

I next created a simple text file in notepad++ - you could use any text editor to be honest.  I called it top.v and typed out the following simple program:

//Hello world LED program

//create a module called top
module top (
    output [7:0] led, //create an output vector called 'led' with 8 bits
    output wifi_gpio0 //create an output for the wifi gpio
);
    assign led = 8'b10101010; //set the state of the bits in the vector to the number 170
 // this sets the bits on and off alternately

    assign wifi_gpio0 = 1'b1; // set the wifi gpio wifi high 
endmodule //end the module

Save the file in the directory made previously:

C:\msys64\src\Alex\ulx3s

Next jump to the ConEmu command prompt and make sure all of the files we need are there by typing ls and hit enter :

next type the following: apio build --board ulx3s-45f'

You should see the following displayed, ignore the warning messages:

  The following files will have been created in the directory:

Exciting times....now it is time to upload the program to the FPGA.  Make sure the ULX3S board is plugged into a suitable USB port and powered up.

Type the following command:

apio upload --board ulx3s-45f

If all goes according to plan you should see the following:

Next type the following:

apio clean

This removes all of the unnecessary files created during the processes.  Finally its time to admire your work.  If everything went according to plan you should see the following LED pattern on your ULX3S!

Ok so its nothing special but it's a start. I'm hoping soon to do a bit more with it.  I hear good things about something called ICE Studio:

https://icestudio.io/

It doesn't have support for the ulx3s yet but I'm hopeful it can be added soon!

That's all for now - Langster!