Open Source FPGA Bitcoin Miner

A miner that makes use of a compatible FPGA Board. The miner works either in a mining pool or solo.

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.

Compiling

Altera

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.

The clock needs to be assigned to a pin. If the clock speed is changed, you need to do something with PLLs. (both unconfirmed, someone with more info?)

Programming the FPGA

On linux you need to set udev rules for the UsbBlaster cable to work.

1. altera usb blaster

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

Altera

Copy the .sof file from the quartus output directory under your project directory to the scripts/program directory and execute <path>/quartus_stp -t program.tcl, then select the device you want programmed and then the sof file you moved to the directory.

Using urjtag

(unconfirmed to work, lights blink though)

$ sudo jtag > cable UsbBlaster > bsdl path /usr/share/urjtag/bsdl/EP4CE22F17C6_pre.bsd > detect > svf fpgaminer.svf

Mining

Altera

To mine on a device other then DE115, you need to edit mine.tcl (under scripts/mine) and set the following bits to the correct values.

proc find_instances {} {
       global instances
       foreach instance [get_insystem_source_probe_instance_info -hardware_name "USB-Blaster \[1-4.6\]" -device_name "@1: EP3C25/EP4CE22 (0x020F30DD)"] {
               dict set instances [lindex $instance 3] [lindex $instance 0]
       }

And

start_insystem_source_probe -hardware_name "USB-Blaster \[1-4.6\]" -device_name "@1: EP3C25/EP4CE22 (0x020F30DD)"

To point to the correct device. The correct data for this can be found with jtagconfig --enum. Do not forget to add 0x to the beginning of the hex code of the device that you get with jtagconfig.

Then change the connection details marked with "EDIT THESE"

Linux tclcurl is not included in the directory, and on some distros like Arch it does not exist in the repositories. The original authors site is down, but you can get it from debian repositories. Then just unpack and copy to the same directory as mine.tcl. Remember to get bin32 version, since quartus is 32bit only.

See Also

• Mining Pool

External Links

• Open-Source-FPGA-Bitcoin-Miner project on GitHub