Artificial Intelligence/FPGA

[Invisible One]

I am doing my thesis in artificial intelligence, and wish to create a "proof
of concept". It has been a long time since I have been working with FPGAs
directly and wish to know the following:

1 - What software and hardware tools are available that operate well under
Windows (compilation, etc...)?
2 - Has anyone had any experience with programming AI's on FPGAa? Are there
tools available for FPGA development?
3 - Are there any programmable logic devices out there that have a ADC built
in?
4 - Are there any "tricks" that I would be able to use in order to generate
uniform, gaussian or Cauchy noise with a minimal of external hardware?

Thank you in advance, I have posed many questions for a single posting!

John.

 

[Mario Trams]

Hi John,

I am doing my thesis in artificial intelligence, and wish to create a
"proof
of concept". It has been a long time since I have been working with FPGAs
directly and wish to know the following:

1 - What software and hardware tools are available that operate well under
Windows (compilation, etc...)?

If you are referring to FPGA synthesis, you need to check which
software is offered by the FPGA manufacturer of your choice.
Mostly they offer free software for the smaller devices.

2 - Has anyone had any experience with programming AI's on FPGAa? Are
there tools available for FPGA development?

I have none, and I doubt that there are any software tools available
specifically for this purpose. You would need to describe your
neurons/neural network in VHDL or so. Perhaps it's a good idea to
google for vhdl neuron or something like that. Maybe someone already
created some kind of framework that generates you synthesizable
code from a more abstract specification.

I remember that Siemens developed a neuro computer around 10 years
before (called Synapse 1). That one basically consisted out of tons
of Lattice CPLDs.

3 - Are there any programmable logic devices out there that have a ADC
built in?

If you refer to adders, yes, logic blocks of most FPGA series can be
configured as adder/subtractor/counter/...

4 - Are there any "tricks" that I would be able to use in order to
generate uniform, gaussian or Cauchy noise with a minimal of external
hardware?

I don't know exactly what is "gaussian or Cauchy noise", but you can
generate noise easily with shift registers with XOR-feedback. Perhaps
this is what you need.
Just stress google to find out more about that.

I hope this gave you some starting points.

Regards,
Mario

 

[Thomas Stanka]

Hi,

"Invisible One" <Invisible_1@sympatico.ca> wrote:

1 - What software and hardware tools are available that operate well under
Windows (compilation, etc...)?

You can do the whole design flow for Fpgas under Windows (mostly NT).
Normaly you get the tools from the Fpga vendor.

2 - Has anyone had any experience with programming AI's on FPGAa? Are there
tools available for FPGA development?

Don't know any tools, but there are different people doing AI on VLSI.
Feed google with Linear-Integrate-and-Fire for a start in the topic.

3 - Are there any programmable logic devices out there that have a ADC built
in?

You can build an ADC using digital logic an an external RC cirquit.
The result is ok for 3-5 bits resolution. The more bits, the more
effort you will have to do in the external cirquit (e.g doing an
active lowpass with higher order instead of an passive).

bye Thomas

 

[William Wallace]

If you can, use Synplify for synthesis. Get the HDL Analist option.

Otherwise, just use the bundles that come from the manufacturer.

"Invisible One" <Invisible_1@sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<hfuUb.8985$bp1.563899@news20.bellglobal.com>...

I am doing my thesis in artificial intelligence, and wish to create a "proof
of concept". It has been a long time since I have been working with FPGAs
directly and wish to know the following:

1 - What software and hardware tools are available that operate well under
Windows (compilation, etc...)?
2 - Has anyone had any experience with programming AI's on FPGAa? Are there
tools available for FPGA development?
3 - Are there any programmable logic devices out there that have a ADC built
in?
4 - Are there any "tricks" that I would be able to use in order to generate
uniform, gaussian or Cauchy noise with a minimal of external hardware?

Thank you in advance, I have posed many questions for a single posting!

John.

 

[Invisible One]

Thank you all for the information. I will look into it immediately. If you
have anything else to say, I will be surely monitoring this thread.

John.
"Invisible One" <Invisible_1@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:hfuUb.8985$bp1.563899@news20.bellglobal.com...

I am doing my thesis in artificial intelligence, and wish to create a
"proof
of concept". It has been a long time since I have been working with FPGAs
directly and wish to know the following:

1 - What software and hardware tools are available that operate well under
Windows (compilation, etc...)?
2 - Has anyone had any experience with programming AI's on FPGAa? Are
there
tools available for FPGA development?
3 - Are there any programmable logic devices out there that have a ADC
built
in?
4 - Are there any "tricks" that I would be able to use in order to
generate
uniform, gaussian or Cauchy noise with a minimal of external hardware?

Thank you in advance, I have posed many questions for a single posting!

John.

 

[nntp]

"Invisible One" <Invisible_1@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:hfuUb.8985$bp1.563899@news20.bellglobal.com...

I am doing my thesis in artificial intelligence, and wish to create a
"proof
of concept". It has been a long time since I have been working with FPGAs
directly and wish to know the following:

1 - What software and hardware tools are available that operate well under
Windows (compilation, etc...)?

Atmel and Xilinx have packages that are free and at cost for developing VHDL
and other languages on their FPGA's. I use the Xilinx software for
development in Windows XP and 2000.

2 - Has anyone had any experience with programming AI's on FPGAa? Are
there
tools available for FPGA development?

I have seen Neural net applications and chaos generators developed on FPGA's
for AI applications. Do a search on Google for papers that describe the NN
and chaos applications. They also have VHDL source code available.

3 - Are there any programmable logic devices out there that have a ADC
built
in?

Never seen a built-in ADC inside an FPGA but interacting is easy, especially
for serial ADC's. I have connected 8 12-bit serial ADC's at one time. VHDL
coding is easiest for serial ADC's.

4 - Are there any "tricks" that I would be able to use in order to
generate
uniform, gaussian or Cauchy noise with a minimal of external hardware?

Yeah, the chaos application mentioned above uses "tricks" to geenrate the
chaos "noise". Also, using spread-spectrum codes using a VHDL based LFSR can
generate a noise when low-pass filtered on an output pin.

Thank you in advance, I have posed many questions for a single posting!

John.