[sdiy] FPGAs

[Chris Bethea]

Matthew,

I used to work for Lattice Semiconductor and I would recommend their chips to anyone. They have some real advantages and some really useful features, especially for the hobbyist:

No through-hole packages, sorry, but their XP, XP2, ECP and ECP2 series are available in easy-to-solder QFPs.

Their design tools are free for the devices I mentioned. They are robust and do a good job. The learning curve is like the sweet spot between Altera and Xilinx - easy to make something that "just works," then when you want to tweak performance, they have tools to let you adjust *anything* to suit your needs.

Mouser stocks their parts and they are not even too terribly expensive.

If you're just getting started, I recommend the XP2-17 in a 208-PQFP. Plenty of logic, plenty of memory, I think 5 inboard DSP blocks? and enough I/O that you shouldn't ever have to worry. It also is FLASH-based so you don't even need an external PROM, and it boots in milliseconds.

Just my 2 cents. There's an eval board made by the distributor I used to work with, that has that device and a CODEC onboard, which then comes out to pin headers so you can easily start working with it. I think it cost about 25000 yen? Not sure what that is in AUD, but if you're interested, let me know and I'll call them up and buy one for ya. 

-- Chris Bethea

On 2011/01/28, at 17:18, Matthew Smith <matt at smiffytech.com> wrote:

> Many thanks to those who have responded on this topic.
> 
> I will attempt to summarise my position:
> 
> I'm only looking at this at the moment from a hobby/SDIY perspective as something that *may* be of help. That and to keep my middle-aged brain from atrophying to fast ;-)  In the 5-year plan for my business, I am toying with the idea of a hardware product (actually a MIDI processor) but think it unlikely to happen and would just be microcontroller based.
> 
> I've ordered the following through Abebooks:
> - Fundamentals of Digital Logic and Microcomputer Design: Includes Verilog & VHDL -- Fourth Edition
> - Fundamentals of Digital Logic with VHDL Design with CD-ROM
> - The Verilog Hardware Description Language (with CD-Rom)
> - VHDL Primer (Third Edition)
> 
> Not bad for just over $40 AUD for the lot, delivered :-)
> 
> Unfortunately I don't have the local library option - never have done. Always lived rurally so any technical books are special order and take *months* to turn up. Ordered one back in the UK, arrived after 18 months and I had 4 DAYS before I had to return it! Thank goodness second-hand books are now a) cheap and b) readily available!
> 
> Having furthered my research, I don't think the "which language" question was probably the right one to ask from the start.
> 
> The three major factors appear to be:
> 
> 1) Development environment must work under Linux. Preferably *any* Linux (I run 64 bit Debian Lenny on all my machines) but I can always run a virtual machine under VirtualBox, if necessary.
> 
> 2) Cost - I want to find a device that is affordable which I can programme with tools that are also affordable (or free.)  I have so far been thoroughly confused by the Xilinx software offerings and licensing options. I *think* there might be a free option, but I can't even download the code until next month as the 3.5Gb would be too much of a hit on an already busy month.
> 
> Altera offers a Linux version of it's Quartus II software for free. (Their site is much easier to navigate and the options are much more clear!) Oh - and this software accepts Verilog *and* VHDL. Which is cool.
> 
> Next cost issue is a programmer. I'm rather hoping that this is something that I can build myself, assuming I can find the appropriate application note giving the spec. (Based on my experience of microcontrollers.)
> 
> 3) Physical device. Here's the crunch - I've got to be able to solder this thing to a hand-made board. Even if I get a board made by Futurlec, BGAs are *out*. I reckon I can solder a 144 pin QFP, but think that would be about my limit. I don't actually *need* lots of IO pins - so where's the 40-pin DIP version, guys? ;-)
> 
> So that's where I am - trying to figure out a suitable, inexpensive device, for which I can build a programmer and for which I can develop with a free (or inexpensive) compiler.
> 
> If anyone has any specific recommendations in this respect, I'd be interested to hear.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> M
> 
> -- 
> Matthew Smith
> Smiffytech - Technology Consulting & Web Application Development
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