Feature Request

Community Feature Request Chat
1

I’ve recently been playing with some GAL/FPGA for the first time. I know I’m a bit late to the party.

I think it would be useful to be able to attach the source code and perhaps the various compiled files tp the GAL symbols. Perhaps even embed them so that if the project is copied around or uploaded to somewhere like GitHub everything needed can be in one package.

It would provide a future expansion route where data could be extracted from the files to create the pinouts and even connect to the development tools.

2

This is one way:

A feature request is not really in the domain of KiCad itself.
It’s quite common for a project to combine lots of information from different sources. From the KiCad project, to source code for microcontrollers and FPGA’s to mechanical CAD files and documentation in various forms.

Different people have different ways of organizing that information. From simple zip files and directory structures to version control systems such as GIT. KiCad is just a piece in such a puzzle.

3

Now explain how KiCad would know where it was and be able in future versions to be able to access to get the pinout etc?

5

For that part, I find SKiDL a quite interesting project. It is a python library that does the same job as the schematic. I see it as a sort VHDL equivalent for schematics. You can use python constructs to create parts and make netlist connections. Creating for example a keyboard or LED matrix is just a few nested loops. And Python also has File I/O, which means that if your FPGA synthesizer tool can output some kind of textual pin mapping output, you can read it with SKiDL and further process it.

Especially for bigger FPGA’s, the traditional schematic does not make much sense. A schematic for such is usually just a bunch of narrow but high rectangles with long lists of pins and labels that bugger off to somewhere else in the schematic.

I do not use SKiDL myself though, as I do not draw the kind of schematics where it would be very useful. For me a graphically oriented schematic works better. Once KiCad supports python scripting in the schematic, maybe SKiDL could be used inside a schematic, to create a hybrid schematic where a part of the design is taken over by SKiDL.

7

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