(Held in 2015 at Bethel University, Arden Hills, MN.)
A schedule for last year's workshop is listed below. Please contact me for any suggestions of additional topics you would like to see covered.
ALPHA_Workshop_2014_Schedule.pdf : 2015 Schedule
To prepare yourself, you may find the following three resources useful.
1. Prof. Mans wrote a handout for students called Electronics for Experimentalists. If you need to review general digital logic, it is covered in Chapter 5. A brief introduction to programmable logic and Verilog is given in Chapter 6. If you are not familiar with this topic you may want to review it though we will cover it in the workshop.
E4E-2010.pdf : Electronics for Experimentalists by Prof. J. Mans
2. The entire Lab Manual with the lab exercises for the advanced physics course is posted below. While chapter 8 is an introduction to general digital logic, chapters 9 and 10 expose the students to FPGAs and Verilog. You may glance at these chapters because some of the exercises that we will do in the workshop will be similar to the ones in chapter 9 and 10.
F12LabManCorrected1bwBASYS.pdf : MXP Fall 2012 Lab Manual
3. The complete set of instructions for the exercises for this workshop is listed below:
Manual2015V1d.pdf : All 2015 Workshop Exercises
If you want to familiarize yourself with the software that we will be using for programming the FPGA, namely, Xilinx ISE Webpack Version 14.7, you will find installation instructions here:
InstallationInstructions1g.pdf : Xilinx ISE Webpack Installation Instructions
You may download, for free, the latest version of this software, Version ISE Webpack Version 14.7., directly from Xilinx.com but be warned: the download is about 7 Gigabytes and the final installation takes about 15 Gigabytes. (Only Windows and Linux versions exist at this time.)
A description of the FPGA boards can be found here:
BASYS_E_RM.pdf : Detailed Digilent BASYS Board Description
The power point presentation of the Workshop is listed below:
AlphaWorkshop2014V2b.pdf : ALPHA Power Point Presentation
"Homework" exercises and solutions are given below:
Homework1b.pdf : Homework and Solutions
The AAPT workshop uses some of the material from the more extensive ALPHA workshop. You will receive a hard copy of the manual Manual2015V1d.pdf. However, due to time constraints, we will only do 3 of the exercises in the manual, namely:
Chapter 2: Exercise 1: Full Adder (Using Schematic Representation)
Chapter 7: Exercise 5: Digital-to-Analog Converter using Pulse Width Modulation implemented in Verilog
Chapter 8: Exercise 6: PWM Application: Simple 8-Bit Music Player
To keep cost of the workshop down you will need to bring your own laptop to the workshop with the software specified below preinstalled. While the software is free, it is only available for Windows and Linux machines. (Sorry, there is no Mac version.) We will be working in groups of 2 so we will need at one working laptop per group.
The software consists of three separate packages: 1. Xilinx ISE Webpack Version 14.7: this is the software to implement the projects and which will compile them. 2. Digilent Adept V 2.10.2: this software allows the transfer of the compiled bit file to the prototype board. 3. WinZip: (any version): to extract the downloaded ISE Webpack TAR file for installation.
Detailed installation instructions on installing the software are given below:
InstallationInstructions1g.pdf : Warning: the main software, Xilinx ISE Webpack is huge! The download is close to 6 GB and installation will take, depending on the speed of the computer and the network connection, easily an hour or more. So please plan accordingly.
The power point presentation of the Workshop is listed below:
AAPT_WorkshopW14V1a.pdf : AAPT Power Point Presentation
I am looking forward meeting you all and please contact me if you have some more questions or suggestions,
Looking forward to seeing you all, Kurt Wick
-- Main.KurtWick - Updated July 12, 2016