[sdiy] New cheap FPGA development system

[Eric Brombaugh]

Looks like Xilinx has a new FPGA development system for their Spartan3E 
chips:

http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xebiz/designResources/ip_product_details.jsp?key=HW-SPAR3E-SK-US&sGlobalNavPick=PRODUCTS&sSecondaryNavPick=BOARDS

Quick summary:

* 500Kgate FPGA (includes 20 18x18 multipliers, 360kbits RAM, 232 I/O pins).
* 128Mbit parallel flash, 16Mbit serial flash, 64MByte DDR SDRAM.
* USB, Ethernet, RS-232, JTAG, VGA & generic I/O connectors.
* Lights! Buttons! LCD! Switches! Power supply!
* Free WebPACK software + 60-day evals of the full-up tools.

Cost: $150

Probably wouldn't be a bad way to get into hardware-based digital synth. 
You would need to build your own audio codecs though since they're not 
on this board. One nice thing is that the USB interface can be used to 
program it, rather than requiring you to invest another $150 for their 
JTAG download cable.

Want a fun starter project?
* Go to Aaron Lanterman's pages, grab the schematics for the Synergy 
(http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~lanterma/synergy/)
* Code it up in HDL for an FPGA
* ???
* Profit!

Just kidding :)

Eric

James Patchell wrote:
> In case somebody hasn't mentioned it...but there has been a bit of a 
> change in the Xilinx ISE software pricing structure....
>
> Foundation is still $2500...
> However, the mid priced (~$800) XBase software is no longer 
> available... :-(
>
> But it was replaced by WebPack...which is FREE! :-)
>
> WebPack now works with the Xilinx EDK (Embedded Development 
> Kit)...i.e...microblaze, etc...so, for $500 you can have a software 
> development system for FPGA based controllers.
>
> Oh, yes...WebPack also includes the Xilinx Core Generator 
> now...(finally)...and it includes a CORDIC engine which can be used 
> with a phase accumulator to generate sin waves.