Getting started with Clash on the Arrow DECA devkit

Using a stack project template you can easily set up a new project for the Arrow DECA development board which contains an Intel MAX10 FPGA (50K LEs; 1638 Kbit memory) and a lot of peripherals (10/100 Mbps EtherNet; HDMI TX; USB 2.0 PHY; audio CODEC; etc). The project template contains and LED-blinker created in Clash and a Quartus project that automatically loads the Clash generated files.

New feature: configurable initial values

Clash will soon be updated to include the ability to choose whether registers have initial values. In order to do this, we introduce the concept of a synthesis domain. In this blogpost we’ll go over the reasons why we need initial values, and how to use them.

Undefined values, how do they work?

Clash uses Haskell’s bottom to represent undefined values. Traditionally, bottoms are used to represent exceptional situations which, if evaluated and not explicitly handled, should halt program execution. Due to the nature of circuits, Clash programs have to deal with these situations much more often (and more explicitly) than normal Haskell programs. In this blogpost we’ll go over the common pitfalls of undefined values, and what tooling is available to deal with them.

Clash @ ZuriHac 2019

We’ll be running a small tutorial where you will learn the basics of Clash, and hardware design, by building a stack-based CPU (think Forth). Read the full blogpost for more details!

Building systolic arrays with Clash

Systolic arrays are networks of locally coupled processing elements, continuously receiving and sending their inputs and outputs from and to their neighbors. They cannot access main memory or global buses, thus allowing them to keep critical paths short. Because of this, they are extremely good at solving problems in the field of image processing, artificial intelligence, and computer vision. This blogpost will take a look at how to build systolic arrays with Clash and subsequently build a matrix multiplier with it.

Matrix multiplication with Clash

Matrix multiplications happen to be useful in a very broad range of computational applications, such as computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and climate change research. At QbayLogic we help implement these (and more) applications on FPGAs using Clash. In this blogpost we will explore the intricacies of implementing matrix multiplications on FPGAs. We will explore the apparent differences between hardware and software development, how to use Clash to convert a “naive” algorithm to one suitable for an FPGA, and the use of Clash dependent types.