[sdiy] ezFPGA kit/PLD kit

[Colin Hinz]

On Mon, 10 May 2004, Tim Parkhurst wrote:

> ALSO, if you're looking to get into programmable logic (and want to save
> some money), there's a pretty good article in the April 2004 'Nuts N& Volts'
> magazine that is part one of a series detailing how to use a PLD, build a
> programming cable, and where to download some free software. Looks like the
> whole thing could easily be done for less than $100 (free software, build or
> buy a cable, Xilinx XC9572 PLD and adaptor board for $79). Again, I haven't
> tried this out yet, but this looks like a very inexpensive way to get into
> programmable logic. Here's the site for the guy who wrote the article. His
> site includes links to tutorials and prices for the adaptor boards (has them
> for Xilinx and Altera or Atmel PLDs).
>
> http://www.al-williams.com/pldhome.htm
>
> Whadaya all think?

Insight sells a little development board, which includes a Xilinx
XC9572XL-10VQ64, for only $40. Add another $35 for the JTAG cable
(which as you point out can be hand-made) and a CD copy of the
WebPack (which is a free download from Xilinx but the last time I
did this -- a major revision ago -- it was something like 180 MB).

Alternatively, Xilinx offers a "CPLD design kit" which has both the
XC9572XL part as well as the "CoolRunner II" XC2C256 (that's
256 macrocells!) for only $49.99. Comes with WebPack and other
docs on CD as well.

http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xil_prodcat_product.jsp?title=design_kit

Yes, these are not 5V parts, whereas the older XC9572 parts offered
by Al Williams are. However, Xilinx stopped listing the 5V parts in
their glossy product brocures over 2 years ago, so I have to wonder
how long it'll be before they get obsoleted entirely.

Of course, what we really want is a nice small board with FPGA,
some SDRAM (gotta buffer up that data somewhere) and a bunch of
good quality A/D and D/A converters. I could draw up the schematics
for such a thing, but I don't have access to PCB software to
turn schematics into reality. Hmmmmmm.

- Colin Hinz
  Toronto, Canada