FPGA Bitcoin Miner

Bitcoin Mining / November 10, 2019

This is the first open source FPGA Bitcoin miner. It was released on May 20, 2011.

Software needed

Currently programming and running the FPGAminer code requires Quartus II for Altera devices and Xilinx ISE Webpack for Xilinx devices. Quartus is 32bit only. The free ISE Webpack does not work on devices larger then Spartan6 LX75.

Altera

The compile the code on an different Altera device then DE2-115, you need to set the Device to be the correct one. Find the correct fpga package number and add it, for the DE0-Nano this is EP4CE22F17C6. Be sure to select the correct one, because the hardware effects the location of your pins, which you will need in the clock pin step.

To get the provided code to compile on a smaller device, you need to set CONFIG_LOOP_LOG2 to a value between 0-5. Higher values shrink the size in so that 4 does approx. 12000 LUTs large program, while 0 is around 90000 LUTs. CONFIG_LOOP_LOG2 is set in the file fpgaminer.qsf. The fpgaminer_top.v file also has a similar setting, but it is an ifdef/it does not get set from there if the setting exists in the qsf.

To make the code compile properly on an different device (not a DE2-115), you need to set the osc_clk pin to the clock pin of your device. This can be read from the device manual! On an DE0-Nano this pin is PIN_R8. This pin location varies between devices and you must look it up in your device manual. To set the pin location, open the assignment editor add new osc_clk and set its location to the pin specified in your manual, ie. for DE0-nano this is R8. For the DE2-115 this is PIN_Y2.

Changing the clock speed

NOTE: You can fry your FPGA doing this!

Edit main_pll.v and find the line: altpll_component.clk0_multiply_by = 5,

The way the Mhz is calculated is 50Mhz*multply_by/divide_by. Setting of 10 with default clk0_divide_by gives Mhz of 100, 8 is 80Mhz.

Compile the code.

Watch for critical warnings from synthesis.

Run Powerplay power analyzer tool and set it with the cooling system you have. If there are no errors, you may at your own risk program the FPGA with the higher Mhz bitfile.

Programming the FPGA

On linux you need to set udev rules for the UsbBlaster cable to work. Under arch these are under /etc/udev/rules.d/ add a file called 51-altera.rules.

#####altera usb blaster

BUS=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="09fb", SYSFS{idProduct}=="6001", MODE="0666", SYMLINK+="usbblaster"

Copy the .sof file from the quartus output directory under your project directory to the scripts/program directory and execute

/quartus_stp -t program.tcl, then select the device you want programmed and then the sof file you moved to the directory.