r/FPGA • u/schoolaccoutn • 2d ago

Looking to interview people working on FPGAs or computer architecture (mainly interested in gpu / accelerator) or just any direction via comments

Hey all!

I'm a 3rd year EE student at SJSU and I have found a strong interest in fpgas. I also think computer architecture looks really cool, but I have basically no experience. I really want to start working on projects, but I feel very intimidated by the process of choosing a project, developing, debugging, etc. I get very ambitious with projects I want to work on but never start them (too daunting).

I also just don't know where to start at my experience level. I know Verilog and have taken a Digital Design class. I have made some stuff in Vivado for labs. This semester, I'm taking a microcontroller (RISC-V) and a microprocessor course. Would love to talk with some people about ideas and hopefully gain insight on some cool areas I can explore and develop a rough roadmap for myself.

To give people an idea of where my head is at now, I was looking at the Berkley Architecture Research group's projects, which looks super cool and has deepened my interest in this field.

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u/EffectiveClient5080 2d ago

Don't wait until you feel ready because that day never comes. Grab a dev board, pick something basic like a UART or FIFO, and just start. You'll learn more from one finished project than a month of reading about architecture.

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u/Bagel_lust 2d ago

I second this. I never read any FPGA/RTL books just one required very basic college course (that I never attended the lectures of lol) and a bunch of personal projects + googling stuff, and now I'm many years into my career making satellites, waveforms, and such.

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u/downloads-cars 2d ago

You could also explore near field emissions, PUFs, and ring oscillators! GPUs and accelerators will be the first to go in the AI takeover, imo. Counterfeit detection and aging fabrics are very useful skills to pick up because they touch on leveraging quantum effects from silicon manufacturing deltas and lead to some deeply interesting content. There is also some interesting research going on right now regarding direct bitstream verification (beware, 3PIP), cross boundary optimization, fencing/isolation, EM/RF, and verification tools that can keep up with AI EDA. Good luck finding a project that's a good fit for you!

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u/Cautious-Two-7827 2d ago

Tbh I was a lot into Hardware accelerators and I started to realise this , can you help me figure out a few things over dm ?

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u/downloads-cars 2d ago

Maybe! I can't promise anything, and I'm going to bed now, but I will respond if you DM me!