controlpaths.com

Exploring Versal ACAP with the iW-RainboW-G57D Board

I have been using Zynq7000 and Zynq MPSOC devices for years, but I had not had the chance to work with AMD’s latest adaptive platform, Versal ACAP, until now. A few weeks ago, the iW-RainboW-G57D board, based on the Versal AI Edge VE2302, landed into my desk thanks to iWave Systems.

Published by Pablo on Apr 26, 2026

Getting started with Agilex 3 and floating-point DSP operations

I have been working with Xilinx (now AMD) FPGAs for years, so when the Agilex 3 FPGA and SoC C-Series Development Kit landed on my desk I knew the transition would involve some hard changes. I used Quartus in my University days with a Terasic kit based on a Cyclone II (DE2) and later a Cyclone IV...

Published by Pablo on Apr 12, 2026

Remote FPGA verification of DSP algorithm using Red Pitaya Gen2

When I was in the university. I remember my FPGA professor saying how important is to simulate our designs. To be honest, in that moment simulations were something boring and I just wanted to get an FPGA development board and test the design in the real hardware (I came from the microcontrollers ...

Published by Pablo on Mar 29, 2026

Red Pitaya Gen2: Analysis of an audio signal modulated using PWM

I know Red Pitaya almost since its Kickstarter campaign, and I have been using it for a while now. It is one of those boards that you can bring always with you, actually I have an old one and it came always in my bag. Born as a Kickstarter project back in 2013, it started as an open-source measur...

Published by Pablo on Mar 15, 2026

Implementing AES-128 in Verilog: ECB core and CTR wrapper

Usually when we hear about cryptography we think about Bitcoin, NSA and NVIDIA GPUs, but cryptography is much more than that, and it is a key part of our cybersecurity. Unlike digital signal processing algorithms or control systems, cryptographic algorithms are designed from a very digital perspe...

Published by Pablo on Mar 1, 2026

Why hardware models can beat software mocks: SPI INA239 and robot arm models

This week I gave a talk in a SW quality meetup. The talk was focused on a practical idea: when we develop software that must communicate with hardware, a hardware model implemented in FPGA can be more useful than a simple software mock.

Published by Pablo on Feb 15, 2026

Internal USB header JTAG cable with an FT232H

I am a great fan of buying cheap FPGA accelerator cards and repurposing them for experiments and custom workloads. Now, I have a computer where I test this boards and use it as a development platform for various projects. However, I always need to have a JTAG cable that goes from a USB connector ...

Published by Pablo on Feb 1, 2026

Application Notes

[AN001] Designing from zero an IIR filter in Verilog using biquad structure and bilinear discretization.

Filtering is likely the most common DSP algorithm that any embedded engineer has to design, no matter it they are developing for an STM32, or TI DSP or, of course, en FPGA. Filtering is such important because the majority of the applications are connected to the real world, so they need to captur...

[AN002] Running subcycle average models on Speedgoat Performance System.

Materials like Silicon Carbide (SiC) or Gallium Nitride (GaN) are making our power electronics converters faster and faster. This means small inductors and capacitors that make, in most cases, the cost of the devices decrease. This also means that the control devices also have to be faster, and n...