Okey, many answers, thanks! :) I will need to look this up a little bit
more. But all these "developmentboards", is it like a programmer in those
so I can program other chips than the one on the board? Or is it not like
with MCU where you have a separated programmer? At school we have that but
when I look at most homepages there are always these development boards...

So, is development board used much more that just a bare chip and a
programmer? Maybe because the chip's are so complex that they always need a
custom PCB? How much does a CPLD/FPGA programmer cost? Can a
microcontroller "program" an CPLD/FPGA? It should be able to do that I
think but I have never does, I wonder how usual it is? And a last question,
I have read that some chip has a special memory that get loaded into the
chip a boot, is that more common then that the CPLD/FPGA stores it's
instructions?

(I think that CPLD usually or always store the instructions in them self?)

Regards	   
					
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Scorpiion wrote:
> Hi, I have just started out with some VHDL in school and would like to have
> something at home to play with. I'm not sure of CPLD vs FPGA for my use,
> but CPLD feel more suited for smaller projects I guess. My question is how
> Linux is supported as developmentplatform?

You might want to consider a BaseBoard4 from Demand Peripherals.
I designed the board _specifically_ to be used with Linux.  This
means that it does not use JTAG for download and so does not need
the windrv stuff.  The board uses a USB-to-serial FTDI part and
so downloading code to the board is as simple as
  cat myfpgacode.bin > /dev/ttyUSB0

There is a tutorial on how to install the Xilinx tools on Linux,
how to build a simple counter (i.e. "Hello, World!" for an FPGA),
and how to download and test the code on a BaseBoard4.  The build
environment uses vi and make. Check it out:
   http://www.demandperipherals.com/docs/CmdLineFPGA.pdf

The board costs $100 and has a Spartan 3E 100K on it.  This is
neither particularly cheap or over-powered but it sure is nice
to use Linux, vi, and make for FPGA development.

Bob Smith

"Scorpiion" <Robert.nr1@gmail.com> writes:

> I have looked at some of Xilinks and Alteras homepages and it seams that
> they have software for Linux. But it would be good to hear from someone
> with experince how the different software packages work?

I've used Xilinx ISE and EDK in Linux a lot, Modelsim too (the
expensive Modelsim SE usually). They work just fine, since version 9.1
as I recall. Previous versions were a little bad in the GUI
department, since that was done with some kind of converter tool.

I haven't really used a Xilinx cable driver in Linux since 2006. 
Worked fine then, but the labs I've been in since then have had
Windows machines.

> (if some company have better software than other, or someones
> software is better for the Linux platform)

You may want to look at the free offerings from Lattice and Actel too,
as far as I know they provide free Modelsim and Synplify. Not sure if
they provide it for a student though.

I don't know what the story is with Altera. I vaguely remember
finding, downloading and running their free Web Edition for Linux last
spring, but I can't find it now.

Uwe Bonnes <bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote:

>- Voltage tolerance needed (only XC95XV is (limited ) 5-Volt tolerant

Xilinx's Spartan 2 (not 2E!) is also 5V tolerant. Same goes for older
Virtex devices.

-- 
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
                     "If it doesn't fit, use a bigger hammer!"
--------------------------------------------------------------

austin <austin@xilinx.com> wrote:

> Programming tools (the JTAG programming cable) used with Linux are
> always a bit tough to get to work (just read the posts on the subject)
> as support of USB isn't as trivial as it is with 'Windoze.'

Xc3sprog at sourceforge is also supposed to work out of the box for many
cable and devices. I am interessted in cases where it doesn't.

-- 
Uwe Bonnes                bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik  Schlossgartenstrasse 9  64289 Darmstadt
--------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------

Le Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:42:15 -0700, austin a &eacute;crit&nbsp;:

> Programming tools (the JTAG programming cable) used with Linux are
> always a bit tough to get to work (just read the posts on the subject)
> as support of USB isn't as trivial as it is with 'Windoze.'
Are you sure of that ? Xilinx windrv ported to linux is a nightmare. I'm 
using this library <http://www.rmdir.de/~michael/xilinx/> fairly support 
cable III, cableIV and this one http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/
Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,395,716&Prod=XUP-USB-JTAG i'm using for the moment.

You can read the XAPP502 if you want to deeply embed programming CPLD/
FPGA. As an example PROGRAM, CCLK, DIN, INIT, DONE signals are quite 
easily driven by a microcontroller to do the job with a .bit or .rbt file.

After a discussion with M. Delorie in this very ng, i found XAPP058 a bit 
complicated for my needs ...

Habib

"Andy Botterill" <andy@plymouth2.demon.co.uk> wrote in message 
news:4ae0966d$0$17520$bed64819@gradwell.net...
> Scorpiion wrote:
..
>
> The ISIM simulator does work under linux.
>
> I have no knowledge of VHDL simulators for linux.
>

It is called Modelsim DE (just released)

The good news is that it includes PSL/SVA so assertions are no longer reserved 
for the big boys :-)

Hans
www.ht-lab.com



> The officially supported o/s is RHEL and I think vista.
>
> Support for the design process I don't know. Andy
>>
>> I have looked at some of Xilinks and Alteras homepages and it seams that
>> they have software for Linux. But it would be good to hear from someone
>> with experince how the different software packages work? (if some company
>> have better software than other, or someones software is better for the
>> Linux platform)
>>
>> I'm just not sure where to start and some genereal tips on Linux and
>> CPLD/FPGAs would also be good to hear... :)
>>
>> Regards, Robert
>>

A very good source for students is:

http://www.digilentinc.com/

If you choose Xilinx Webpack for Linux (free download), and then you
can buy the small Spartan 3E board:

http://www.xilinx.com/tools/webpack.htm
(download webpack)

and

http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,719,721&Prod=BASYS2
(3E pcb)

which is commonly used at many universities and schools (so there is a
lot of stuff on the web sites of universities and schools).

Programming tools (the JTAG programming cable) used with Linux are
always a bit tough to get to work (just read the posts on the subject)
as support of USB isn't as trivial as it is with 'Windoze.'

Austin

Scorpiion wrote:
> Hi, I have just started out with some VHDL in school and would like to have
> something at home to play with. I'm not sure of CPLD vs FPGA for my use,
> but CPLD feel more suited for smaller projects I guess. My question is how
> Linux is supported as developmentplatform? (I have linux on my computers at
> home and want to be able to us them as hostsystem, at school we use some
> older version of a program called warp)

webpack ISE 10.1 works under Fedora 8 and 11 (still checking that out). 
For the free version you get the 32 bit version. It will work on a 64 
bit system. I do that already. To use 64 bit version of webpack you need 
to pay for licenses etc.

You may have to pay for the full version to use the larger/newer fpga's.

The ISIM simulator does work under linux.

I have no knowledge of VHDL simulators for linux.

The officially supported o/s is RHEL and I think vista.

Support for the design process I don't know. Andy
> 
> I have looked at some of Xilinks and Alteras homepages and it seams that
> they have software for Linux. But it would be good to hear from someone
> with experince how the different software packages work? (if some company
> have better software than other, or someones software is better for the
> Linux platform)
> 
> I'm just not sure where to start and some genereal tips on Linux and
> CPLD/FPGAs would also be good to hear... :)
> 
> Regards, Robert
> 
>