FPGA – stands for Field Programmable Gate Array, is configurable logic devices. In this guide I will show you how to program of develop FPGA using VHDL HDL. I assume that you are familiar with basic terminology and digital design basics, also have some programming skills, language doesnt matter, but C/C++ or such is better. I will use Spartan 6 XC6SLX9 board with some peripheral devices commonly available for beginners and hobbyists such as ESP32 module for real-time Input/Output projects.
Here I will use CLI or Terminal based development flow, without and GUI, but for working with Spartan 6 FPGA board you need Xilinx ISE WebPack tool, it bit sound old now as it out of support but i found that Spartan 6 based board are still available and they are not expensive.
VHDL is based on the Ada software programming language but its not Ada now is it a software programming language. VHDL is a hardware description language that is designed to model digital logic circuits. It simply has syntax similar to Ada programming language but the way it behaves is different. In this guide you will learn VHDL by studying the examples we use to describe digital logic and then doing some of the VHDL problems at the end of each chapter. Just like any programming language, you can only learn VHDL by actually writing code VHDL programs run on actual hardware of Xilinx Spartan 6 based board. This is a good way to learn not only VHDL but digital logic as well.
I will use Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit Desktop OS for host, and Xilinx ISE 14.7 WebPack toolchain, the Ubuntu is physically installed on separate computer which is connected to local network, I will show you how to configure Ubuntu 12.04 repository to have working apt-get update, apt-get install.
So after installation you need to use nano text editor for changing /etc/apt/source.list
sudo nano /etc/apt/source.list
You need to change lines after http://~.ubuntu.com/
And place old-releases in everywhere you meet in the link part the tilde. So after changing all lines do
sudo apt-get update
Please do upgrade of system to upgrade to the latest versions of packages and also ca-cetificates.
sudo apt-get upgrade
After doing upgrade you can begin installing necessary packages.
sudo apt-get install vim build-essential software-properties-commmon libc6-dev-i386 libusb-dev fxload git