Hardware Basics — Everything You Need Before Building the GPU

This folder teaches the foundations behind GPU_Mastery_Guide.md and gpu_project/, from zero, one idea at a time. Every lesson has:

• Plain-language explanations, with the "why" before the "how"
• The math, with worked examples you can check by hand
• Runnable code (Verilog and Python), every example tested, with its real output shown
• Exercises with answers (hidden in collapsible sections: try first!)
• "How this connects to the GPU", so nothing is learned in isolation

The Lessons (Do Them in Order)

#	Lesson	You'll understand	Runnable code
1	Electricity, Transistors and Why Hardware Has Limits	Voltage, current, transistors as switches, CMOS gates, why gates have delay, power = αCV²f, clocks	—
2	Numbers and Binary Math	Binary, hex, bit widths, two's complement, overflow, fixed point, floating point	numbers_lab.py
3	Logic Gates and Boolean Algebra	Truth tables, Boolean laws, De Morgan, deriving the full adder, NAND universality	full adder + exhaustive test
4	Combinational Circuits	Mux, decoder, comparator, adder, shifter, the latch trap, width rules	5 blocks + exhaustive tests
5	Sequential Logic and Clocks	Feedback, latches, flip-flops, registers, counters, reset, setup/hold, f_max math	register, counter, shift register
6	Thinking in Clock Cycles	= vs <=, latency vs throughput, pipelining, state machines, valid/ready	blocking demo, traffic-light FSM, handshake
7	Memory	RAM, read latency, ports, banking, FIFOs, $readmemh, bandwidth math	synchronous RAM, FIFO vs model
8	Computer Arithmetic	Multiplication, product widths, fixed-point Verilog, lerp, how FP add/multiply work, signed pitfalls	Q8.8 multiplier, lerp
9	How a Processor Works	Fetch/decode/execute, ISA, encoding, assemblers, decoding your GPU's instructions	a complete tiny CPU + assembler
10	From CPU to GPU	Threads, lanes, SIMD, warps, masks, divergence, latency hiding, a tour of gpu_core.sv	SIMT lane tracer, latency-hiding timeline
11	Graphics Math	Vectors, dot product, matrices, homogeneous coordinates, perspective, edge functions, barycentrics, Z-buffer	transform walkthrough, software rasterizer (makes a PNG)
12	Tools and Workflow	Simulation vs synthesis, testbenches, GTKWave, debugging method, linting	—
13	Glossary and Final Quiz	60+ terms, 25 quiz questions with answers, where to go next	—

Time: roughly 1–2 evenings per lesson. Don't rush Lessons 5, 6 and 10: they contain the ideas everything else rests on.

How to Study Each Lesson

1. Read the explanation once.
2. Predict what the example will print, then run it and compare. Surprises are where learning happens.
3. Change something (an input, a width, a parameter) and predict again.
4. Do the exercises on paper before opening the answers.
5. Can you explain the "How this connects to the GPU" section to someone else? Then move on.

Setup (Once per PowerShell Window)

The tools were installed to D:\Downloads\Hardware\tools\oss-cad-suite:

. D:\Downloads\Hardware\tools\oss-cad-suite\environment.ps1
$env:VERILATOR_ROOT = "$env:YOSYSHQ_ROOT\share\verilator"
cd D:\Downloads\Hardware\GPU\hardware_basics
.\run_all.ps1          # runs every example in every lesson and reports PASS/FAIL

To run a single example, follow the commands shown in its lesson (e.g. in Lesson 5: cd code\05_sequential, then iverilog ... and vvp ...).

Folder Layout

hardware_basics/
  README.md                       (this file)
  01_ ... 13_*.md                 (the lessons)
  run_all.ps1                     (runs every example)
  code/
    02_numbers/                   numbers_lab.py
    03_logic_gates/               full_adder.v, tb_logic.v
    04_combinational/             comb_blocks.v, tb_comb.v
    05_sequential/                seq_basics.v, tb_seq.v
    06_cycles_fsm/                blocking_demo.v, traffic_light.v, tb_traffic.v, tb_handshake.v
    07_memory/                    memories.v, tb_memories.v
    08_arithmetic/                fixed_point.v, tb_fixed.v
    09_tiny_cpu/                  tiny_cpu.v, tb_cpu.v, tiny_asm.py, sum.s, sum.hex
    10_cpu_to_gpu/                simt_trace.py, latency_hiding.py
    11_graphics_math/             transform_demo.py, mini_raster.py