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Introduction

Binaries for the Icestorm tools (yosys, arachne and icetools). They have been compiled statically and packaged for Platformio and Apio

Building a new release

Follow this steps for building a new release of the Icestorm tools:

• Clone the Toolchain-icestorm repo and enter into the directory:

$ git clone https://github.com/bqlabs/toolchain-icestorm.git
$ cd toolchain-icestorm/

• Execute the build-toolchain.sh script:

$ bash build-toolchain.sh

It will apt-get-install the packages needed, clone the github repositories, compile the tools statically and package them into a tarball

When it is finished, the toolchain-icestorm--.tar.gz file will be created.

These are the different platforms:

• linux_i686
• linux_x86_64
• windows (x86, amd64)
• darwin (x86_64)

Upload a new release with travis

Increment version number X in build script

$ git commit -a -m 'Version updated'
$ git push upstream master

$ git tag 0.X
$ git push upstream 0.X

Installing the Icestorm package

You can install the latest icestorm package using Apio. Follow these steps:

• Install apio:

$ pip install apio

• Install the icestorm tools with:

$ apio install
Install tool-scons
Download scons-2.4.1.tar.gz
Downloading  [####################################]  100%             
Unpacking  [####################################]  100%
Install toolchain-icestorm
Download toolchain-icestorm-x86_64-4.tar.gz
Downloading  [####################################]  100%             
Unpacking  [####################################]  100%

Testing in windows

These instructions are temporal. When the whole icestorm tools are cross-compiled and integrated into Apio, the installation and tests will be done in a different manner

But in the meanwhile, the instructions for testing the different packages are the following:

Testing iceprog

• Download the toolchain-icestorm-iceprog-windows_i386-7.zip package with iceprog for windows. It has been cross-compiled from Linux to windows. It is 32-bits version, so that it should work on both 32 and 64 windows versions

• Uncompress the toolchain-icestorm-iceprog-windows_i386-7.zip file

• Move the bin\iceprog.exe exectuable file to the Desktop

• Move the examples\icestick*.bin bitstreams files to the Desktop

• Plug the icestick board into the computer usb

• Make sure you have installed the correct drivers. Follow these instructions

• Open the cmd command terminal interface

• Drag the icprog into the terminal and insert an space

• Drag the bitstream t1.bin to the terminal and press Enter. Iceprog should be execute with the t1.bin as an argument. The bitstream should be uploaded into the icestick board:

If all the icestick leds are turn on... Congrats! You have uploaded your first bitstream from Windows!

• Download the other two examples: t2.bin and t3.bin

More tests

[2016-Feb-28]: Cristóbal Bueno tested it on Windows 10-64 bits. Thanks!

Testing in MAC

These instructions are temporal. When the whole icestorm tools are cross-compiled and integrated into Apio, the installation and tests will be done in a different manner

But in the meanwhile, the instructions for testing the different packages are the following:

Testing iceprog

• Download the toolchain-icestorm-iceprog-darwin-7.tar.gz package with iceprog for MAC

• Uncompress the package and drag the folder toolchain-icestorm to your desktop

• Make sure you have brew installed

• Execute the following command for installing the libftdi library:

$ brew install libftdi0

• Unplug the icestick board and unload any ftdi driver:

$ sudo kextunload -b com.FTDI.driver.FTDIUSBSerialDriver
$ sudo kextunload -b com.apple.driver.AppleUSBFTDI

• Plug the icestick board
• Open a terminal command line interface and the toolchain-icestorm folder from the desktop
• Move into the bin folder and drag the iceprog file to the terminal
• Move into the examples/icestick folder and drag the t1.bin file into the terminal
• Press Enter in the terminal. The bitstream will be upload into the FPGA
• Repeat with the t2.bin and t3.bin examples

Congrats! You've uploaded your first bitstream into the FPGA using opensource tools! :-)

Authors

• Jesús Arroyo
• Juan González (Obijuan)

Credits

• Cristóbal Bueno: Bug reported. Testing. Thanks!

License

Licensed under a GPL v2 and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License