Learning HDL without worrying about the toolchains

Learning HDL without worrying about the toolchains

The FPGA setup and configuration problem

Learning Verilog or VHDL is challenging enough on its own. Yet, for most students, the real frustration hits elsewhere. Hours are spent learning vendor toolchains, setting up projects, and configuring build environments. Instead of learning digital design concepts, students often find themselves debugging build scripts and wrestling with slow or unstable GUIs. While documentation is available, it’s usually dense and not written for beginners.

When builds fail, errors can be difficult to track down. It’s difficult to navigate Verilog and VHDL using most vendor-provided IDEs. Furthermore, projects and simulations sometimes stop working for no clear reason. Progress stalls. Learning stalls. It’s quite common for many students and professionals to prefer simple text editors over the vendor-provided IDEs.

Introducing HDL Forever

HDL Forever is an IDE that handles the toolchain for you while also making it easy to navigate VHDL and Verilog code. HDL Forever removes the need to configure build environments and FPGA toolchains. The software finds all the tools installed on the machine and allows the user to select which toolchain to use. After that, HDL Forever does the rest. It automatically sets environment variables and sets up build environments.

HDL Forever identifies the FPGA vendor tools installed on a machine. When the user selects the vendor tool from the dropdown menu, the shell within HDL Forever is configured for that toolchain.

HDL Forever provides an environment for Verilog and VHDL that understands the code, the hierarchy, and the dependencies across a project. The software is built around a language-aware indexer, enabling fast navigation, signal tracing, and early error detection. This allows students to focus on digital design instead of fighting the build system.

HDL Forever provides port highlighting for module instantiations. Orange parentheses indicate output ports. Blue parentheses indicate input ports. Green indicates inout ports. It also provides port type hints on the right side of the editor.

HDL Forever integrates with the basics-graphics-music repository. When opened in HDL Forever, the tool automatically detects supported development boards, selects the appropriate FPGA toolchain, and configures the build environment without manual setup. There are no project files to create, no environment variables to export, and no board definitions to select. Running the design is as simple as pressing a button.

HDL Forever is capable of detecting boards compatible with the basics-graphics-music repository. When the software detects a board, synthesis, place and route, and programming are just a single button push.

Want to try it?

HDL Forever launches in March 2026. Want early access? We’re offering a limited pre-launch release to engineers who want to shape the future of HDL development. Contact me (andrew@kicktostart.com) to join the pre-launch program.