[sdiy] FPGAs

[Matthew Smith]

Quoth Jason Tribbeck at 28/01/11 21:37...
...
> It's not too bad - I did a 208-pin Spartan-3E just before Christmas. It 
> was the first time I'd done a chip with that many pins (previous 
> "record" was 160 pins) - I did get one edge slightly off-centre, and it 
> was a bit of a pain straightening it out. I just wasn't paying enough 
> attention (three sides were fine; it was just the fourth).

Maybe the solution to *that* part of the problem is to throw together a 
generic development board - with a breakout board with an 
regulators/clocks on-board - send my Eagle files off to Futurlec and get 
them to fab it with solder mask. The solder mask might help with assembly.

As regards the programmer - since it looks like everyone's got a free 
tool I can use which accepts both Verilog and VHDL, availability of a 
cheap (as in $50 cheap) programmer or something that's easy to build, 
this might be the deciding factor for me.

Although I'm seeing obstacles left, right and centre, it's actually 
starting to get interesting :-)	


Cheers

M

-- 
Matthew Smith
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