Hands on FPGA

Hands On FPGA

About the track

Description

The use of hybrid platforms for the implementation of digital solutions has become commonplace, making it very important to understand their foundations. The course will focus precisely on presenting the fundamentals of design and implementation of embedded systems consisting of a reconfigurable logic platform and a microprocessor, which can either be described in HDL or included in silicon.

Track goal

Students should be able to create an embedded system from scratch with an FPGA that includes a microcontroller, adding third-party and custom IP cores, using the basic tools for hardware and software development.

Prerequisites

● Students must bring their laptops with Vivado software installed (version 2018.1/2/3). The download is available from: https://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.html/content/xilinx/en/downloadNav/vivado-design-tools/archive.html
● Students must bring a USB-A to USB-Micro cable, which will be used to connect the development board. Make sure the cable is not just for charging.
● It is desirable to be familiar with some processor architecture, have notions of HDL and FPGA.

Minimum content

● Review of HDL and its use in the description of digital circuits
● Softcores/Hardcores. Review of the processors available today. Constituent parts.
● Communication interfaces between the processor and peripherals. AXI bus protocol.
● Creation of a simple system with a processor.
● Use of IP Cores to expand the capacity of a simple system with a processor.
● Creation of custom IP Cores and their integration into the base system.
● Debugging tools.

Professors

Eng. Nicolás Alvarez

Eng. Nicolás Álvarez was born in Gualeguaychú, Argentina, in 1972. He obtained his Electronic Engineering degree from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) in 2003.
He has extensive experience in digital design, embedded systems, FPGA development, and signal processing and has been working in the academic field since 2003.
Currently, he is actively involved in teaching and research, serving as an Associate Professor at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and the National University of San Martín (UNSAM). Additionally, he is a teacher in the Postgraduate Specialization in Embedded Systems at UBA, where he is responsible for delivering courses on digital systems based on reconfigurable logic devices. His research interests include hardware design for signal processing, FPGA-based embedded systems, and digital communications. His publications cover a wide range of topics, including satellite communications, railway interlocking systems, and digital architectures.
Since 2022, he has served as Coordinator of the Electronics Department at UNSAM, contributing to academic development and curriculum planning.

Ing. Roberto Simone (UTN-FRBA)

Born in Bs. As. Received his degree of Electronic Engineer in Facultad Regional Buenos Aires of Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. He has been working for 20 years in the field of embedded systems. He is Professor in Electronics Department of Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. He is also a researcher in the area of asynchronous digital circuits at the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional Facultad Regional Buenos Aires.

Dr. Ing. Luciano Ferreyro (UTN-FRBA)

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he received his degree in Electronic Engineering from the Facultad Regional Buenos Aires at the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional (UTN-FRBA). In 2023, he was awarded a double-doctoral degree in Engineering through a cotutelle program between the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (Argentina) and the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (Germany). Since 2014, he has worked as a teaching assistant in the Electronics Department at the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. That same year, he began his research career at the Instituto de Tecnologías en Detección y Astropartículas (ITeDA), where he contributed to the Pierre Auger Observatory. For his Ph.D., he participated in the Q&U Bolometric Interferometer for Cosmology (QUBIC) project for the UNSAM side, and the Electron Capture in Holmium (ECHo) experiment for the KIT side, developing and implementing the digital backend of the readout electronics for cryogenic detectors multiplexed in the frequency domain via a microwave superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) multiplexer (μMux). He also carries out research at the Digital Processing Laboratory of UTN-FRBA. Currently, he holds a postdoctoral position at ITeDA through CONICET. His research interests include digital signal processing, the design and implementation of readout electronics architectures, and the development of cryogenic quantum detector technologies.

Dr. Ing. Yao Ming Kuo (UTN-FRBA)

Received the Engineer degree in Electronic Engineering (2018) from Universidad Tecnológica Nacional (UTN Argentina) in 2018 and the Ph.D. international degree in computer engineering from Universidad Antonio de Nebrija (Spain) in 2022. He has previously worked as researcher at UTN and as hardware design engineer at INTI (National Institute of Industrial Technology, Argentina) in the micro- and nanoelectronics department. He has designed ASICs, FPGAs, and microcontroller-based systems for instrumentation sensors and power-save applications at INTI for third-party companies.

During his academic career, he obtained multiple scholarships for studies in Germany through DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), as well as the Banco Santander Scholarship to carry out his Ph.D. degree at Universidad Antonio de Nebrija (Madrid, Spain) and a research stay at University College Dublin (Dublin, Ireland).

He is currently working as a SoC Digital Design Engineer consultant at Monolithic Power Systems (MPS). His interest areas include digital signal processing, SoCs, computer architecture, digital design and implementation, fault-tolerant systems, and reliability.