[ANNOUNCE] TONITE(Thurs) =Hardware: FPGA, ASICs, and CPUs -Bryce Meyer. stlLUG

On Mar 18, 2020, at 7:16 PM, Gary Meyer &lt;gary(a)sluug.org&gt; wrote: Well, we are sure you have been waiting to hear what we’ll do tomorrow nite. We are doing a REMOTE STREAM presentation. We hope everyone can join us. We will use the ZOOM tool from zoom.us <http://zoom.us/>. The exact invitation/meeting name will be sent out in ANNOUNCE & DISCUSS mailing lists as well as posted in SLUUG.org/calendar <http://sluug.org/calendar>, the home page, and the meetup.com <http://meetup.com/>. (May not be ready until tomorrow afternoon. Keep your eyes open.) Altho we expect you’ll clearly see the slides in Zoom, Bryce hopes to make them available for download in early afternoon. You can download them to read ahead or just the comfort of having their control at your own finger tips. If anyone REALLY WANTS to meet physically, we have a volunteer who may be willing to go to Nick & Elaina’s and set up the projector, but the speaker will be on the screen and NOT PHYSICALLY there. If you REALLY want to physically meet there, please send your desire to EDITOR(a)SLUUG.org <mailto:EDITOR@SLUUG.org> and we will try to arrange it. So, get a comfy chair, a drink & snack, and join zoom at/after 6:30PM Thurs (tomorrow). ============================================================================================== ABSTRACT: TOPIC Hardware: FPGA, ASICs, and CPUs by Bryce Meyer This presentation will cover the basics of what are Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), past and current, when to use them versus ASICs.(Application Specific Circuits) and CPUs/GPUs, and a show and tell on the Alterra BeMicro10 and a little on Quartus and HDLs (VHDL, Verilog) to program them. An FPGA is a series of circuits that can be configured using a description language, then used as if they were burned for that use (as ASICs are), in lieu of CPUs which are full burned in but need software to run. FPGAs are often used to prototype circuitry before burning ASICs, used to test timing in real-time systems, or make one time use circuits, or used in systems that are configured, then 'forget' themselves if captured or lost (as in battlefield systems). A few references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-programmable_gate_array <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-programmable_gate_array&sa=D&usd=2&usg=AOvVaw0rcKagrW4bXtRoiPrsSbBD> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit&sa=D&usd=2&usg=AOvVaw0s8i8m7EJUuqh1beJTwYru> https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/software/programmable/quartus-prime… <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/software/programmable/quartus-prime/overview.html&sa=D&usd=2&usg=AOvVaw2bIl3dcDXO9g51sblIYPnC> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHDL <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHDL&sa=D&usd=2&usg=AOvVaw1ACJC3NtEp7sz7RIci2060> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verilog <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verilog&sa=D&usd=2&usg=AOvVaw0gX1jXg5LT9A64g3DejYe7> https://numato.com/blog/differences-between-fpga-and-asics/ <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://numato.com/blog/differences-between-fpga-and-asics/&sa=D&usd=2&usg=AOvVaw2sLb4dwXwHPK8Ilu74iEBL> https://www.arrow.com/en/products/bemicromax10/arrow-development-tools#page… <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.arrow.com/en/products/bemicromax10/arrow-development-tools%23page-1&sa=D&usd=2&usg=AOvVaw0pD9o9nCdhucqJ5xRpoKl5> ======================== The STLLUG meetings are usually on the third Thursday of each month from 6:30PM to 9:00PM.