I'd like to master rf circuit design, I have worked on the digital signal processing/software side o

I'd like to master rf circuit design, I have worked on the digital signal processing/software side of RF, but not done the hardware side

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:10 AM

@techielew you ever heard of ModelSim?

BBudweiser I'd like to master rf circuit design, I have worked on the digital signal proces...

techielew•3/8/24, 2:11 AM

Oh that's a good one. That's like a dark art only known to the Scandinavians lol

BBudweiser @techielew you ever heard of ModelSim?

techielew•3/8/24, 2:11 AM

I thought it sounded familiar and then looked it up and yes I have. Have you/do you use it?

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:11 AM

when I worked in FPGA development I used it

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:12 AM

I used VHDL, before doing anything further down the pipeline, I'd make it first work in ModelSim

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:12 AM

if you want to e.g. learn VHDL, I extremely recommend using that, you can learn VHDL on that level much like you learn a software language

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:12 AM

try out implementing basic digital circuits, simulate them, validate them..

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:13 AM

you can also feed in data from files, and save output to files, so can already simulate signal processing stuff there

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:14 AM

this is not going to get you all the way to making (functional/good) FPGA designs, but if you come from zero and have nobody else to guide you, then having all steps at once is a bit much, maybe do this, afaik ModelSim is free (at least it was some years ago)

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:14 AM

so you can just download it, write your code, and simulate it

techielew•3/8/24, 2:14 AM

I was just looking for a free version

techielew•3/8/24, 2:14 AM

looks like it was when altera was still it's own version of altera

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:14 AM

so just get an old version

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:14 AM

for this purpose that won't matter

techielew•3/8/24, 2:14 AM

yeah i'm on the hunt

techielew•3/8/24, 2:15 AM

thanks for that tip. i'm in the process of slurping navadeep's brain but i'm sure he'll get tired of that soon haha.

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:15 AM

it's just a way for you to get started very fast, and just get going with trying things out, also simulating VHDL by other people, on opencores or github

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:15 AM

and alternating it

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:15 AM

as a next step

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:16 AM

I think that is a really neat way to pivot into digital design

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:16 AM

also there should be a bunch of code examples in there already

techielew•3/8/24, 2:16 AM

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/software-kit/750368/modelsim-intel-fpgas-standard-edition-software-version-18-1.html

Intel

ModelSim-Intel® FPGAs Standard Edition Software Version 18.1

ModelSim-Intel® FPGAs Standard Edition Software Version 18.1 B625

techielew•3/8/24, 2:16 AM

techielew•3/8/24, 2:17 AM

Thank you! This looks fun

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:17 AM

do that for some time, when you are confident with doing digital designs up to that level

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:17 AM

get some low cost FPGA board (under 50€)

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:18 AM

do some very simple designs that are small relative to the FPGA, those will probably run even without any tweaking, or only minimal tweaking

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:18 AM

when you aren't on the limits of your hardware.. things are fairly benign

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:19 AM

lots more to say of course.. but that's a good starting point I think

techielew•3/8/24, 2:21 AM

yeah that's great. tbh we are getting a couple fpga-based eval platforms sent to us under embargo. i was going to give one to navadeep and give the other away after an unboxing, but maybe navadeep will have to give his away now

techielew•3/8/24, 2:21 AM

thanks i really appreciate it

techielew•3/8/24, 2:21 AM

so, what type of rf?

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:22 AM

first I'd like to get just into actually high speed digital circuits, where RF effects matter for routing and such (impedance matching and all that), just haven't gone there yet (not done in practice for PCB development)

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:23 AM

then non microwave but actual radio related stuff, stuff on the board, and maybe doing even board antenna's, not sure I'd go up to microwave.. though curious

BBudweiser first I'd like to get just into actually high speed digital circuits, where RF e...

techielew•3/8/24, 2:38 AM

Is there something specific you'd like to learn or some way you'd like to go about learning the HS digital stuff on PCB? Petr and I are developing demo video content and welcome ideas

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:43 AM

I think what I want goes way beyond the basics, but I think an example that would be instructive, would be e.g. "just" something standard, not a custom RF thing, but just for an existing standard, that would also probably be valueable to the largest number of people,
say..
Decide on a standard protocol in RF, like Bluetooth, IEEE802.11, or whatever.
And then in e.g. KiCad, design the RF critical path, from the PHY-Chip to a PCB antenna, antenna doesn't even have to be fully "self"-designed, but maybe coming from the Antenna Designer in Matlab.

BudweiserOP•3/8/24, 2:43 AM

is that something semi-reasonable?

BBudweiser I think what I want goes way beyond the basics, but I think an example that woul...

techielew•3/8/24, 3:12 AM

Well, I'm not the talent. @Petr Dvořák @Joseph Ogbonna, what say you?

BBudweiser I think what I want goes way beyond the basics, but I think an example that woul...

techielew•3/8/24, 3:13 AM

Personally I'd like to build up this over time. And right now we're at "how to read a datasheet" lol

Navadeep•3/8/24, 4:11 AM

Good discussion. For RF, I default to this book https://www.cambridge.org/highereducation/books/planar-microwave-engineering/CA50D727AD97C3F4789065F1F9DB0771#contents

and currently exploring this RFSoC which is all in one package - Processor, FPGA fabric, 4GSPS+ RF ADC/DACs, a bunch of high speed transceivers etc https://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/soc/rfsoc.html

AMD

Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC

Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoCs integrate multi-giga-sample RF data converters and soft-decision forward error correct (SD-FEC) into a MPSoC architecture.

Higher Education from Cambridge University Press

Planar Microwave Engineering | Higher Education from Cambridge Univ...

Discover Planar Microwave Engineering, 1st Edition, Thomas H. Lee, HB ISBN: 9780521835268 on Higher Education from Cambridge

Navadeep•3/8/24, 4:19 AM

I have used Modelsim only once for a digital design course. This one is open to use over web with templates for implementing math logics or algorithms - https://www.makerchip.com/

NNavadeep I have used Modelsim only once for a digital design course. This one is open to ...

techielew•3/8/24, 4:50 AM

same question to you if you could master something, what would it be, and why, Navadeep?

BBudweiser I'd like to master rf circuit design, I have worked on the digital signal proces...

Navadeep•3/8/24, 4:57 AM

this. excatly.

Navadeep•3/8/24, 5:00 AM

more on DSP and algorithms side. Trying to leverage my grand old math skills which partly is rusted now.

Petr Dvořák•3/8/24, 5:24 AM

@JohnBudweiser Please can you make a bullet summary of the project you want to focus on or need a help with?

BBudweiser I think what I want goes way beyond the basics, but I think an example that woul...

Joseph Ogbonna•3/8/24, 8:33 AM

Do you want to learn or you have a project to make ?

nour_oud•3/8/24, 9:51 AM

On this International Women's Day, please share the name of the woman you consider the greatest in the field of engineering. Let's celebrate and honor her contributions!

nour_oud•3/8/24, 10:03 AM

For me, she’s Ada Lovelace, known for her contributions to computer science.

Flo•3/8/24, 10:05 AM

Shes not famous, but for me its Anna, an autistic computer science woman from the USA!

youcef_ali•3/8/24, 12:16 PM

In Zynq SoC what is The fastest way to stream data from PL to PS ?

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