ZPU is a very interesting soft core processor designed to take as little FPGA resources as possible, leaving you a lot of space for peripherals and hardware accelerators. It’s a modern stack based 32 bit CPU, the implementation is independent of the FPGA model and it can also be used in other technologies (e.g. anti-fuse, ASIC).
Most of the classical materials teach you to use separate power supplies and connect the digital ground (DGND) with the analog ground (AGND) in a single point. But is it sufficient ? No, it’s not, since you can have high frequency interference that propagates through the ground, from the digital circuits to the analog ones.
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I have seen a very interesting 8-bit family of microcontrollers, recently launched by Microchip: the PIC16F178X 8-bit advanced analog flash microcontrollers. What’s cool about those microcontrollers, it’s the fact that they have all kind of analog peripherals:
Want an operating system ? There is Linux, there is FreeBSD, you even have the choice .. and it’s all free as in freedom.
Want to do something more exotic, like scientific computing ? There is Scilab, Octave, Maxima and OpenModelica.
Want an office suite ? You’ve got LibreOffice. Do you like graphic design ? Then you’ve got Gimp, Inkscape and Scribus.
As you probably know very well, the open source software is well established and it’s here to stay forever. The most prominent example is Linux, the operating system which dominates the server market and runs on many architectures. It can run on your PC, on your router, on your phone and even on your watch.
But what happens to open hardware ? Will it follow the suite of open source software ?