I've seen the future of DIY (was RE: [sdiy] Tiny FPU chip/16 bit micros?)

[jays at aracnet.com]

Rainer,

But ask them how much each of those cores cost!

Just say no to BGAs! They are evil!

Jay S.

Rainer Buchty <rainer at buchty.net> wrote :

> Today was the first of a two-day session on SoC development sponsored by
> Xilinx which I had the luck to attend...
> 
> Needless to say that I was simply blown away. Take this processor core,
> attach some UARTs, maybe an Ethernet core, some special (custom) logic,
> write your program in C for the chosen processor core -- press a button,
> download the stuff into the FPGA and have your SoC up and running.
> 
> And it doesn't even need a high-priced Virtex-IIpro or Virtex-4, it's
> already big fun with the rather cheap Spartan-3 with 200k gates. The
> almost only soldering to do is getting the fine-pitch QFP or BGA
> soldered to the board -- but we've seen people doing that with household
> irons and halogen spots.
> 
> Tomorrow will be the hands-on session on installing and running embedded
> Linux on such a SoC... Can't wait.
> 
> Rainer (now happy owner of a Digilent Spartan-3 eval board)