Tang Nano 20k FPGA dev board

[modrobert]

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I recently bought a Tang Nano 20k development board from Sipeed. The hardware worked out of the box but I had some software problems with the IDE initially. Programming using the built-in Gowin programmer has been working fine so far (which seems to be common problem). I’m using Xubuntu 24.04.4 LTS (which is basically a slimmed down Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS running with Xorg and XFCE) on a PC.

After downloading ‘Gowin_V1.9.11.03_Education_Linux.tar.gz’ from gowinsemi.com (requires registering), I unpacked the files into ‘/opt/gowin’ (any directory you create is fine), and tried to run it, but got library version errors and core dumps. In order to fix the problem I created a script called ‘gowin_ide.sh’ to launch ‘gw_ide’:

#!/bin/bash
cd /opt/gowin/IDE/bin
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/gowin/IDE/lib
./gw_ide

This will make sure the IDE uses its own libraries first (before system) and sub processes launched from the GUI also finds them. There was still a library error where it complains about undefined symbols in “libfontconfig”, this needed a separate fix:

rm /opt/gowin/IDE/lib/libfreetype.so.6

Now finally ‘gw_ide’ launches, and also the tools from within the GUI.

I then decided to try an example tutorial found here:
https://wiki.sipeed.com/hardware/en/tang/tang-nano-20k/example/led.html

This worked for the most part, just had to change the “IO Type” voltages to “LVCMOS33” in the FloorPlanner part, more info about in that comments of that article.

I modified the example LED blink design a bit, added another counter LED blink and a Verilog testbench (even though a testbench might be overkill in this case), mostly to figure out how to run a simulation with this toolchain because I didn’t feel like using DSim from Altair (requires registration) which is linked in the GUI.

Here is the modified ‘led.v’ example:

`timescale 1ns / 1ps

module led(
    input wire Clock,
    output wire LED1,
    output wire LED5
);

/********** Counters **********/
//parameter Clock_frequency = 27_000_000; // Crystal oscillator frequency is 27Mhz

`ifdef SIM_COUNT_OVERRIDE
    parameter LED1_value = `SIM_COUNT_OVERRIDE;
    parameter LED5_value = `SIM_COUNT_OVERRIDE;
`else
    parameter LED1_value = 13_499_999; // The number of times needed to time 0.5s
    parameter LED5_value = 1_349_999; // This currently acts like a slow clock for GAO at 0.05s
`endif

reg [23:0]  LED1_value_reg = 24'b0; // counter value
reg         LED1_value_flag = 1'b0; // IO change flag

always @(posedge Clock) begin
    if ( LED1_value_reg <= LED1_value ) begin // not count to 0.5s
        LED1_value_reg  <= LED1_value_reg + 1'b1; // Continue counting
        LED1_value_flag <= 1'b0; // No flip flag
    end
    else begin //Count to 0.5S
        LED1_value_reg  <= 24'b0; // Clear counter,prepare for next time counting.
        LED1_value_flag <= 1'b1 ; // Flip flag
    end
end

reg [23:0]  LED5_value_reg = 24'b0; // counter value for LED5
reg         LED5_value_flag = 1'b0; // IO change flag

always @(posedge Clock) begin
    if ( LED5_value_reg <= LED5_value ) begin //not count to 0.05s
        LED5_value_reg  <= LED5_value_reg + 1'b1; // Continue counting
        LED5_value_flag <= 1'b0; // No flip flag
    end
    else begin
        LED5_value_reg  <= 24'b0; // Clear counter,prepare for next time counting.
        LED5_value_flag <= 1'b1; // Flip flag
    end
end


/********** IO voltage flip **********/
reg LED1_reg = 1'b0; // Initial state

always @(posedge Clock) begin
    if ( LED1_value_flag ) begin //  Flip flag 
        LED1_reg <= ~LED1_reg; // IO voltage flip
        `ifdef SIMULATION
            $strobe("Time: %0t   LED1: %0d", $time, LED1_reg);
        `endif
    end
    else //  No flip flag
        LED1_reg <= LED1_reg; // IO voltage constant
end

assign LED1 = LED1_reg;

/********** IO voltage flip **********/
reg LED5_reg = 1'b0; // Initial state

always @(posedge Clock) begin
    if ( LED5_value_flag ) begin //  Flip flag 
        LED5_reg <= ~LED5_reg; // IO voltage flip
        `ifdef SIMULATION
            $strobe("Time: %0t  LED5: %0d", $time, LED5_reg);
        `endif
    end
    else //  No flip flag
        LED5_reg <= LED5_reg; // IO voltage constant
end

assign LED5 = LED5_reg;

endmodule

…and the testbench ‘tb_led.v’:

`timescale 1ns / 1ps

module tb_led;

    // Declare signals to connect to the LED module
    reg Clock = 0;
    wire LED1;
    wire LED5;

    // Instantiate your original LED module
    led uut (
        .Clock(Clock),
        .LED1(LED1),
        .LED5(LED5)
    );

    // Generate a 27MHz clock
    always #18.5185 Clock <= ~Clock;

    always @(LED1) begin
        $strobe("time: %0t | Testbench observed LED1 at: %b", $time, LED1);
    end

    always @(LED5) begin
        $strobe("time: %0t | Testbench observed LED5 at: %b", $time, LED5);
    end


    // Control the simulation timeline
    initial begin
        // Tell Verilator the name of the waveform file to create
        $dumpfile("waveform.fst");

        // Dump all signals inside the testbench and child modules (0 means everything)
        $dumpvars(0, tb_led);

        // Set a clean format for %0t reporting
        $timeformat(0, 4, "s", 20);

        // Let it run for 1.2 seconds
        #1200000000;

        $display("Simulation successfully completed!");
        $finish;
    end

endmodule

What I ended up using for simulation is Verilator which is open source can be installed like this in Ubuntu Linux:

sudo apt-get install verilator

I also installed GTKWave Analyzer to visually see trace dumps from Verilator:

sudo apt-get install gtkwave

To build the simulation for my custom testbench I use a terminal shell (command line) in the directory where the Verilog sources are:

verilator --binary --timing --trace-fst --top-module tb_led -DSIMULATION -Wall +1364-2001ext+v led.v tb_led.v

…and then to run the simulation:

obj_dir/Vtb_led

The trace can be found in current directory after simulation run, I load it like this to view:

gtkwave waveform.fst

After playing around with the Gowin Analyzer Oscilloscope (GAO) for a while which is a tool included in the GUI, it seems very powerful (reminds me of Xilinx ChipScope), more info in the user guide.

I hope this info helps to get started, let me know if you have any questions or want to share your own tips.

[modrobert]

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I tried some example code found here:
https://github.com/sipeed/TangNano-20K-example

The HDMI example works.

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