iCE40 Floorplan Viewer¶
An interactive browser-based visualization tool for iCE40 FPGA floorplans. It renders the physical layout of logic cells, I/O blocks, and routing resources, making it possible to visually inspect how designs are placed and routed on the chip.
Key Features¶
- Interactive floorplan — zoom, pan, and click on individual tiles and cells
- Browser-based — no installation required, runs entirely in the browser
- iCE40 family support — visualize HX1K, UP5K, and other iCE40 device layouts
- Bitstream inspection — load
.ascfiles to see how a design maps onto the physical chip
Role in Evolvable Hardware¶
The iCE40 Viewer is particularly useful for evolvable hardware research because it allows researchers to visually inspect evolved bitstreams. After an evolutionary run produces a circuit, the viewer can show exactly which logic cells and routing paths the evolution utilized — including unconventional connections that exploit analog physical properties of the FPGA.
Project Use¶
- Bitstream Evolution (iCEstick) — inspect evolved bitstreams on the HX1K
- Bitstream Evolution (pico2-ice) — inspect evolved bitstreams on the UP5K