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| 1 | +Miscellaneous |
| 2 | +============= |
| 3 | + |
| 4 | +History |
| 5 | +------- |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +The origins of this project trace back to 2015, when an in-house, never-released script called **fpga_tools**, written in *Perl*, was used to populate templates for the Xilinx ISE tool. |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +In 2016, the project was renamed **fpga_helpers**, transitioning from *Perl* to *Python*. |
| 10 | +It was published as open-source on GitHub, adding support for Xilinx Vivado and Altera Quartus, and later for Microsemi (now Microchip) Libero-SoC. |
| 11 | +It evolved into a Makefile-based system with two Tcl scripts - one for synthesis and another for programming - both designed to support multiple vendors, along with a few automation scripts. |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +By the end of 2019, **PyFPGA** emerged as a complete rewrite, replacing the Makefile and Tcl scripts with a Python-based workflow system. |
| 14 | +The project was launched on GitLab, with its first official release (0.1.0) on February 29, 2020 - just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| 15 | + |
| 16 | +Throughout 2020, support for open-source tools was gradually introduced. |
| 17 | +Initially, Yosys was integrated as the synthesizer, while ISE/Vivado handled place-and-route and bitstream generation. |
| 18 | +Later, support for VHDL via *ghdl-yosys-plugin* was added, followed by the introduction of OpenFlow - a fully solved with FLOSS tools workflow - at the end of the year. |
| 19 | +Additionally, command-line utilities were introduced to simplify working with small projects and simple and quick proof-of-concepts. |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +In 2021, PyFPGA was migrated from GitLab to GitHub, aligning with the broader FPGA-related FLOSS ecosystem. |
| 22 | +That year, the codebase was significantly expanded and improved, but it also became more complex to maintain. |
| 23 | +This led to the release of version 0.2.0 on May 15, 2022, marking a new starting point. |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +Between 2023 and 2024, the project underwent a major rewrite, incorporating substantial improvements. |
| 26 | +In 2024, support for a new vendor tool, Diamond, was contributed. |
| 27 | +As a result, a new release is taking place in March 2025. |
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