How to program FPGA using F#

Question

I usually use F# for writing numerical algorithms. Functional programming constructs in F# helps to express algorithms in a very natural way. I often end up with a succinct and understandable implementation, and may be able to parallelize it quite fast if there is a chance of parallelism.

I wonder there is a way to compile F# programs down to FPGA. In this way, I can still use F# to avoid boilerplate codes in FPGA programming, and make use of high performance computing in FPGA. Is this possible to do so? If yes, could you provide some hints for me to start with?

Answer 1

I've read about (but never used) Avalda's F# to FPGA conversion, but their site is currently returning a completely blank page. I don't know if that's just temporary of if it means they've gone belly-up.

Answer 2

F# should be ideal for this task because it is derived from the ML family of languages that were bred for metaprogramming. However, I am not aware of any work in this area (although I have had the idea of working on it myself).

I would focus on writing a compiler in F# that compiled a DSL to an FPGA, rather than trying to compile general F# code.