Where does one start when programming an FPGA circuit?

Question

Is there special hardware or software to program an FPGA?

Can it be done in higher level languages?

Does running an application on an FPGA "lock it in" to that execution path?

Answer 1

Is there special hardware or software to program an FPGA?
Yes. For hardware, usually we program FPGA using a USB-JTAG programming cable. For software, If you choose Xilinx's FPGA, you must use Xilinx ISE. If you choose Altera's FPGA, you must use Quartus II.

Can it be done in higher level languages?
Two popular hardware description language VHDL and Verilog HDL.

Does running an application on an FPGA "lock it in" to that execution path?
FPGA programming is totally different to 'software programming' in high level language like c. What you have to do is telling the synthesizer how to 'make' the physical circuit. It's hard to tell in a few words. Please learn the concept of PLD(Programmable Logic Device) first.

Answer 2

You may try to check this out:-

Can it be done in higher level languages?

Short answer is Yes. It can be done. Here is a list of some of the compilers you can use:-

• GarpCC (Callahan, University of California at Berkeley)
• GAUT (UBS-Universität Frankreich)
• Handel-C (Celoxica)
• Hthreads (University of Kansas)
• Impulse-C (Impulse Accelerated Technologies)
• Mitrion-C (Mitrionics)
• DWARV (TU Delft)
• NIMBLE (Synopsys, E.I.S. Braunschweig)
• NISC (University of California, Irvine)
• PICO-Express (Synfora => Synopsys)
• PRISC (Harvard University, Cambridge)
• ROCCC (University of California, Riverside)
• SPARK (University of California, Irvine)

Answer 3

A good example is the Altera DE2 FPGA. You can build a computer system from scratch with it designing everything from logical primitives (AND, OR, NOT) making your own ALU, decoders, muxes and adders. Or you can select a pre-built system and just run your C and assembler there using the FPGA as a computer. The development environment for it is based on Eclipse and used with the Quartus II software suite. Best is if you know the hardware well and if you also know digital design then you can design your own digital components.