From a9d8d0e654265f7c8c3d876f35a0f001ba8e6fdd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Markus Koch Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2019 21:25:18 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] doc: Add notes --- doc/notes.md | 12 ++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+) create mode 100644 doc/notes.md diff --git a/doc/notes.md b/doc/notes.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..645dfea --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/notes.md @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@ +# Intro + +* Technology is becoming more complex every day. +* Devices get smaller, integration gets higher +* As such, it has become harder to actually understand how the devices work. +* 80s, you could open your PC and start probing signals on the mainboard to understand which instructions a CPU executed. These days, pretty much everything can be integrated into a single chip and the actual functionality is *built* in software. +* One example of such a highly integrated component is the FPGA. +* FPGAs essentially allow the designer to create large digital designs inside of an IC. +* As these designs are created by writing software-like source code, one might easily forget the fact that what is created is, indeed, a digital circuit. +* There is no PCB, no components, but also no visibility of the individual building blocks and connections between them. +* To aid students learning about FPGAs better understand the technology, this project aims to provide a platform to look at the inner workings of such a chip by breaking it out of the IC and bringing it onto a PCB where every signal can be traced and measured. +