controlpaths.com

A different approach to the discrete Fourier transform.

The calculation of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), like filtering, are by far the most common digital signal processing algorithms. When I started to investigate about the DFT, I noticed that I needed a large background before understand well how, first the Fourier Transform works, and then...

Published by P.Trujillo on Oct 24, 2022

Creating a custom PolarFire SoC design.

FPGA manufacturers are determined to show us how their devices can do very difficult things like process video, detect in that video who is wearing a mask and who is not, detect if the people is happy or not… all of this while a led is blinking. This make that the information we can find are rela...

Published by P.Trujillo on Oct 10, 2022

Debugging a Microchip's SmartFusion2 SoC.

When I started to develop designs for FPGA, the thing that I missed from the digital signal processors is the debug capabilities. I used to debug my programs using JTAG that performs “real time” reads of the data memory, so I was able to see the value of almost any variable in “real time”. Real t...

Published by P.Trujillo on Sep 26, 2022

Trying to hack a garage door opener with the USRP B210.

National Instruments recently released the USRP B206mini-i, a new portable SDR with a range from 70 MHz to 6 GHz with an USB-C interface compatible with most of the laptops. When we think about radio signals, we often think that all of them are private, impossible to decode, complicated… but...

Published by P.Trujillo on Sep 12, 2022

F4PGA and Project XRAY.

When I think about Open Source, the first that comes to my mind is GNU/Linux. This operating system was developed by Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman in the early 90’s, then all the code was released to the community. Now, this first operating system has grown, and we can find many different o...

Published by P.Trujillo on Aug 29, 2022

How to find documentation about DSP and FPGA.

Sometimes I receive emails or direct messages on LinkedIn from readers asking me about where they can find documentation about DSP, FPGA or both together. Unfortunately, I did’t find webpages where talk about how to make dsp on an FPGA, but there are a several webpages. that I check for some of m...

Published by P.Trujillo on Jul 30, 2022

True RMS compute in FPGA.

When we are designing an acquisition system, sometimes process the signal is not enough, there are many cases where the project requires that the value of a measurement must be shown in a user interface. This is very easy when we are working with DC signals, since we can send to the display the v...

Published by P.Trujillo on Jul 18, 2022

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...