Working on Quartus II Using Verilog

Quartus II is Computer Aided Design (CAD) software that makes it easy to implement a desired logic circuit by using a programmable logic device like an FPGA. For this project, I would be specifying my desired circuit in Verilog hardware description language - Verilog Entry Level. The CAD flow involves certain steps which I'd divide into phases.

I have divided these 7 steps into learning phases and they include:
• Creating a project
• Design entry using Verilog code
• Synthesizing a circuit specified in Verilog code
• Fitting a synthesized circuit into an Altera FPGA
• Assigning the circuit inputs and outputs to specific pins on the FPGA
• Simulating the designed circuit
• Programming and configuring the FPGA chip on Altera’s DE2 board

I plan to play around with the Altera board during each learning phase, so I am going to feel free to be creative with the simplest of designs. I already started with the first phase, which is how to create a project on Quartus II. My plan is to learn the second & third by Tuesday 9/26/2011, fourth & fifth by Friday 9/30/2011 and finally sixth & seventh by Tuesday 10/4/2011.

Right now for my learning phase, I am working on a project I created for a two-way light control. Through the tutorial, I have learned to use the project wizard to create new projects and set the working directory to be used. I am also able to specify the type of device in which my designed circuit will be implemented. In my case, I would be choosing the device: "EP2C35F672C6" because it is the FPGA used on Altera’s DE2 board I'm using for this project. I realized a user can also specify any third-party tool to be used for instance a CAD software for electronic circuits e.g. Electronic Design Automation tools. I am currently working at the fastest pace I can and amazed by how much I have learned so far. The functionality and operation of FPGAs were a mystery to me before I started this research. So far I have not only learned how they operate, but also learned how they could be configured and if needed be reconfigured.

This reminds me of a Senior presentation I witnessed some years back where a student was able to reconfigure a router firmware to perform certain other operations like controlling an automated robot. I wondered how he was able to use verilog for this task but now I have a full understanding of the process. This has come a long way in motivating my research on FPGAs. The use of a router was an alternative to using an FPGA which could  have been too expensive to afford.