I was just chatting to my friend Tony Burch in Australia. During our conversation he pointed me at a cool video he recently posted on YouTube. This video provides a step-by-step guide to implementing a very simple Verilog project using the Xilinx ISE design suite and a Spartan-3E FPGA board.

It still amazes me that I can just pick up a phone and call someone at the far side of the globe. Of course it might have helped if I'd remembered that Tony is 15 hours ahead of me, so although it was a relaxed 3:00 p.m. my afternoon, it was a crack-of-dawn 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning for Tony. But it probably did him good to get a head-start on the day (he can thank me later).

The reason for my call was to give Tony a "heads-up" with regard to the forthcoming launch of the TechBites website. In turn, he told me about a short video titled How to do a Xilinx ISE Verilog Project that he recently posted on YouTube.

This walks you step-by-step through the process of initiating a Verilog project from scratch, entering the code for a simple AND gate design, and compiling and downloading it to a Spartan-3E FPGA board.

Some of the comments from the folks who've seen this are rather good. One viewer said:

Thank you so much, It's being a long time since I've been looking for how to program the FPGA Flash!!! this video just save my life!!! thanks ^-^

Someone else commented:

Thank you very much! I adapted this to the 3a starter kit. Xilinx should take notes from you on how to do a quick start guide. All of their guides are absolute #$%^. They are neither "quick" or for "starting".

Now, if you haven’t already seen them, Tony has actually created an entire suite of videos that are available from his website at www.burched.com

Videos 1 thru 6 are free; the complete suite (all of the videos 1 thru 18) is available for AU$19.95 and includes:

• A quick overview of the design environment - The Xilinx ISE Project Navigator
• How to think about FPGA design
• Set up the board
• Connecting the USB cable for the first time. Installation of the cable drivers
• Cable troubleshooting - what to do if the cable connection does not work
• Entering a design - creating a new project and placing symbols
• Entering I/O pad constraints
• Compile the design and generate a programming file
• Downloading the design to the board
• Modifying the design, clocks and bus taps
• More complicated schematic designs - macros and hierarchical design
• Detailed advice on what to do next

I've watched these little scamps myself. I love Tony's relaxed, methodological, easy-going style (he would make a fantastic lecturer at college or university), and I strongly recommend them to anyone who is starting out with Xilinx FPGAs and the Xilinx ISE design suite.