DAdavexunit·Dec 1, 2015
fpgatools is a project for reversing the Xilinx Spartan family FPGAs. https://github.com/Wolfgang-Spraul/fpgatools
In Why FPGA manufacturers keep their bitstream formats secretWolfgang-Spraul
fpgatools
C2014–2015
Wolfgang-Spraul / fpgatools
fpgatools
public domain tools for FPGAs
3Distinct people
4Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
332GitHub stars
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What it is
public domain tools for FPGAs
GitHub
Where it is used
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What people are saying
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.
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Mentions over time
HN mentions by month4 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2014-05-07 10:09:48 UTC to 2015-12-01 17:34:22 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2014 | 2014-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Jun 2014 | 2014-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 2014 | 2014-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 2014 | 2014-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Sep 2014 | 2014-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Oct 2014 | 2014-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nov 2014 | 2014-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 2014 | 2014-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jan 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 2015 | 2015-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2015 | 2015-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Apr 2015 | 2015-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| May 2015 | 2015-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jun 2015 | 2015-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 2015 | 2015-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 2015 | 2015-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2015 | 2015-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Oct 2015 | 2015-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nov 2015 | 2015-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 2015 | 2015-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
4 sourcesThe major issue with FPGAs today is that there is no free toolchain for compiling the bitstreams that run on them.
The only project I know of to make any real progress on fixing this is fpgatools. [0] It supports a single model of the Xilinx Spartan-6 series, the XC6SLX9. I know almost nothing about FPGAs, but seeing as how almost no one is working on this problem, I figured I'd try to add support for the XC6SLX45, the model that is the Novena motherboard. So far I've added the C code to represent all of the pins. [1] Unfortunately, I haven't heard anything from the maintainer about how to proceed further.
fpgatools is only a single piece of the puzzle, though. It provides libraries to build the low-level bitstreams, but we'd still need Verilog/VHDL implementations that use it, as well as replacements for the proprietary "soft cores"
Read the rest
that most people are using. The amount of work required is intimidating. Not having an HDL readily available did motivate me to have some fun rewriting the example C programs in Scheme, though. [2]
Does anyone know about other such efforts to free FPGAs? I'd be very grateful to hear about them.
[0] https://github.com/Wolfgang-Spraul/fpgatools
[1] https://github.com/Wolfgang-Spraul/fpgatools/pull/8
[2] https://gitorious.org/davexunit/guile-fpga
> Do note that this project does not synthesize or route for chips, only load the bit files onto the chips. Other work is being done on that.
The only project I'm aware of that has made progress on reverse engineering the Xilinx bitstream is fpgatools:
https://github.com/Wolfgang-Spraul/fpgatools
It only works with a Spartan-6 LX9, and then only has partial support (e.g. no block RAM). I'd be interested in hearing about other projects like this if you're aware of them.
In Cheap FPGA Development Boards: What to look forHere's one attempt: https://github.com/Wolfgang-Spraul/fpgatools
In MyHDL – Design hardware with Python – Examples