Drigmorn1 - The Cheapest FPGA Development Board???

We have been promising this for a while and I am finally pleased to
show first images and details of Drigmorn1 here
http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/component_replacements/drigmorn1.html. We
are aiming this to be the cheapest develoment board out there so if
know any cheaper do let me know. We have some more testing to do
before we let it out in the wild but hopefully that will be complete
before Christmas to allow shipment before the holidays.

Use of this board is simplistic. A simple 5v jack for power and a
RS232 interface to allow control by a PC using a terminal emulator
etc. like Hyperterminal. Special variants do allow use as part of
customer boards or prototypes and we should have some application
notes coming on these more unusual uses of this board.

I am also interested in what features everyone would like as and when
we do a Drigmorn2 bearing in mind it is a very cost sensative design.

It's a derivative of the new version Craignell family (obsolete and
enhanced DIL/DIP component replacements) and pictures of those will be
available soon too. We have done a lot of work to improve
manufacturing yield on these and the Drigmorn1 and some of the work we
have done here will allow the even smaller narrow version Craignells
to made Q1/2008.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.

On Dec 5, 6:19 pm, John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
> We have been promising this for a while and I am finally pleased to
> show first images and details of Drigmorn1 herehttp://www.enterpoint.co.uk/component_replacements/drigmorn1.html. We
> are aiming this to be the cheapest develoment board out there so if
> know any cheaper do let me know. We have some more testing to do
> before we let it out in the wild but hopefully that will be complete
> before Christmas to allow shipment before the holidays.
>
> Use of this board is simplistic. A simple 5v jack for power and a
> RS232 interface to allow control by a PC using a terminal emulator

Why use 40 MHz when most other Xilinx FPGA boards are fitted with 50
MHz.?
(would ease code portability)

* Maybe you could leave some TSSOP54 or similar pad for soldering on a
SDRAM chip..?

* What are the three larger chips for? (one is M25P40 I assume)

A further simplification would be to rid of the rs232, leds, and the
dc power jack. Dc power can be had from the dil-40 pins.

On Wed, 5 Dec 2007 09:19:21 -0800 (PST), John Adair <g1@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:

>We have been promising this for a while and I am finally pleased to
>show first images and details of Drigmorn1 here
>http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/component_replacements/drigmorn1.html. We
>are aiming this to be the cheapest develoment board out there so if
>know any cheaper do let me know. We have some more testing to do
>before we let it out in the wild but hopefully that will be complete
>before Christmas to allow shipment before the holidays.
>
>Use of this board is simplistic. A simple 5v jack for power and a
>RS232 interface to allow control by a PC using a terminal emulator
>etc. like Hyperterminal. Special variants do allow use as part of
>customer boards or prototypes and we should have some application
>notes coming on these more unusual uses of this board.
>
>I am also interested in what features everyone would like as and when
>we do a Drigmorn2 bearing in mind it is a very cost sensative design.
>
>It's a derivative of the new version Craignell family (obsolete and
>enhanced DIL/DIP component replacements) and pictures of those will be
>available soon too. We have done a lot of work to improve
>manufacturing yield on these and the Drigmorn1 and some of the work we
>have done here will allow the even smaller narrow version Craignells
>to made Q1/2008.
>
>John Adair
>Enterpoint Ltd.

I would guess that the through-hole parts are a not-insignificant part of the assembly cost - I
would think most users wouldn't have a problem soldering these, and supplying the board without then
would also allow flexibility e.g. to fit straight headers to plug into a prototyping board. 

<posedge52@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:c9307fa4-e5a1-425c-80ee-09d517025732@w34g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> On Dec 5, 6:19 pm, John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
>> We have been promising this for a while and I am finally pleased to
>> show first images and details of Drigmorn1 
>> herehttp://www.enterpoint.co.uk/component_replacements/drigmorn1.html. We
>> are aiming this to be the cheapest develoment board out there so if
>> know any cheaper do let me know. We have some more testing to do
>> before we let it out in the wild but hopefully that will be complete
>> before Christmas to allow shipment before the holidays.
>>
>> Use of this board is simplistic. A simple 5v jack for power and a
>> RS232 interface to allow control by a PC using a terminal emulator
>
> Why use 40 MHz when most other Xilinx FPGA boards are fitted with 50
> MHz.?
> (would ease code portability)
>
> * Maybe you could leave some TSSOP54 or similar pad for soldering on a
> SDRAM chip..?
>
> * What are the three larger chips for? (one is M25P40 I assume)
>
> A further simplification would be to rid of the rs232

I would keep the RS232 or at least the line driver since RS232 is still one 
of the simplest method to connect the board to a PC. If you don't have a 
serial port than you can buy a low-cost (I paid &#4294967295;5 for mine) RS232-USB 
cable.

Hans
www.ht-lab.com

PS Looks like a very nice board!


>, leds, and the
> dc power jack. Dc power can be had from the dil-40 pins. 

On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 12:41:36 GMT, "HT-Lab" <hans64@ht-lab.com> wrote:

>
><posedge52@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
>news:c9307fa4-e5a1-425c-80ee-09d517025732@w34g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>> On Dec 5, 6:19 pm, John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
>>> We have been promising this for a while and I am finally pleased to
>>> show first images and details of Drigmorn1 
>>> herehttp://www.enterpoint.co.uk/component_replacements/drigmorn1.html. We
>>> are aiming this to be the cheapest develoment board out there so if
>>> know any cheaper do let me know. We have some more testing to do
>>> before we let it out in the wild but hopefully that will be complete
>>> before Christmas to allow shipment before the holidays.
>>>
>>> Use of this board is simplistic. A simple 5v jack for power and a
>>> RS232 interface to allow control by a PC using a terminal emulator
>>
>> Why use 40 MHz when most other Xilinx FPGA boards are fitted with 50
>> MHz.?
>> (would ease code portability)
>>
>> * Maybe you could leave some TSSOP54 or similar pad for soldering on a
>> SDRAM chip..?
>>
>> * What are the three larger chips for? (one is M25P40 I assume)
>>
>> A further simplification would be to rid of the rs232
>
>I would keep the RS232 or at least the line driver since RS232 is still one 
>of the simplest method to connect the board to a PC. If you don't have a 
>serial port than you can buy a low-cost (I paid &#4294967295;5 for mine) RS232-USB 
>cable.
>
>Hans
>www.ht-lab.com
>
>PS Looks like a very nice board!
>
>
>>, leds, and the
>> dc power jack. Dc power can be had from the dil-40 pins. 
>

Another suggestion - put a footprint for a 6-pin o.1" header for a FTDI TTL-232 cable - this is a
nice quick way to get high-speed  serial comms and 5V power. 

http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/EvaluationKits/TTL-232R.htm

The M25P40 is the standard serial flash memory fitted. So there is
some capacity to run a Microblaze etc.. I'll have to check the
footprints but I think we can go to 16Mbit and possibly 32/64 Mbit as
options.

Power can be put in the pin header as an option and variants of the
board with straight pins are an option we are considering offering.

If you don't want the RS232, pins etc, then maybe the Craignell series
are better for your application. They are smaller take the shape of a
standard DIL/DIP (28,32,36,40 pins available) and very minimalist.
Otherwise they are identical to the Drigmorn1.

Leaving a site for something else is a possibility the future. We may
also do a companion board to do some more.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.


On 6 Dec, 10:54, posedg...@yahoo.com wrote:
> On Dec 5, 6:19 pm, John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > We have been promising this for a while and I am finally pleased to
> > show first images and details of Drigmorn1 herehttp://www.enterpoint.co.uk/component_replacements/drigmorn1.html. We
> > are aiming this to be the cheapest develoment board out there so if
> > know any cheaper do let me know. We have some more testing to do
> > before we let it out in the wild but hopefully that will be complete
> > before Christmas to allow shipment before the holidays.
>
> > Use of this board is simplistic. A simple 5v jack for power and a
> > RS232 interface to allow control by a PC using a terminal emulator
>
> Why use 40 MHz when most other Xilinx FPGA boards are fitted with 50
> MHz.?
> (would ease code portability)
>
> * Maybe you could leave some TSSOP54 or similar pad for soldering on a
> SDRAM chip..?
>
> * What are the three larger chips for? (one is M25P40 I assume)
>
> A further simplification would be to rid of the rs232, leds, and the
> dc power jack. Dc power can be had from the dil-40 pins.

Mike

As with any of our products if there is a demand we will offer the
variant. We can build variants as part of a main build at relatively
little cost. For specific customer needs we already do variants of
chips in say industrial grade, or special pinning like our OVERCOAT
option for board stacking and so on. Unlike many of competitors who
offer a very fixed product, unless you want 10K+ units, we do special
builds down at volumes as low as a few units. As always if someone
wants something different it's always worth talking to one of my team
in the office.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.

On 6 Dec, 12:02, Mike Harrison <m...@whitewing.co.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Dec 2007 09:19:21 -0800 (PST), John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
> >We have been promising this for a while and I am finally pleased to
> >show first images and details of Drigmorn1 here
> >http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/component_replacements/drigmorn1.html. We
> >are aiming this to be the cheapest develoment board out there so if
> >know any cheaper do let me know. We have some more testing to do
> >before we let it out in the wild but hopefully that will be complete
> >before Christmas to allow shipment before the holidays.
>
> >Use of this board is simplistic. A simple 5v jack for power and a
> >RS232 interface to allow control by a PC using a terminal emulator
> >etc. like Hyperterminal. Special variants do allow use as part of
> >customer boards or prototypes and we should have some application
> >notes coming on these more unusual uses of this board.
>
> >I am also interested in what features everyone would like as and when
> >we do a Drigmorn2 bearing in mind it is a very cost sensative design.
>
> >It's a derivative of the new version Craignell family (obsolete and
> >enhanced DIL/DIP component replacements) and pictures of those will be
> >available soon too. We have done a lot of work to improve
> >manufacturing yield on these and the Drigmorn1 and some of the work we
> >have done here will allow the even smaller narrow version Craignells
> >to made Q1/2008.
>
> >John Adair
> >Enterpoint Ltd.
>
> I would guess that the through-hole parts are a not-insignificant part of the assembly cost - I
> would think most users wouldn't have a problem soldering these, and supplying the board without then
> would also allow flexibility e.g. to fit straight headers to plug into a prototyping board.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

On Dec 6, 9:55 am, John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
> The M25P40 is the standard serial flash memory fitted. So there is
> some capacity to run a Microblaze etc.. I'll have to check the
> footprints but I think we can go to 16Mbit and possibly 32/64 Mbit as
> options.
>
> Power can be put in the pin header as an option and variants of the
> board with straight pins are an option we are considering offering.
>
> If you don't want the RS232, pins etc, then maybe the Craignell series
> are better for your application. They are smaller take the shape of a
> standard DIL/DIP (28,32,36,40 pins available) and very minimalist.
> Otherwise they are identical to the Drigmorn1.
>
> Leaving a site for something else is a possibility the future. We may
> also do a companion board to do some more.
>
> John Adair
> Enterpoint Ltd.
>
> On 6 Dec, 10:54, posedg...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > On Dec 5, 6:19 pm, John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > > We have been promising this for a while and I am finally pleased to
> > > show first images and details of Drigmorn1 herehttp://www.enterpoint.co.uk/component_replacements/drigmorn1.html. We
> > > are aiming this to be the cheapest develoment board out there so if
> > > know any cheaper do let me know. We have some more testing to do
> > > before we let it out in the wild but hopefully that will be complete
> > > before Christmas to allow shipment before the holidays.
>
> > > Use of this board is simplistic. A simple 5v jack for power and a
> > > RS232 interface to allow control by a PC using a terminal emulator
>
> > Why use 40 MHz when most other Xilinx FPGA boards are fitted with 50
> > MHz.?
> > (would ease code portability)
>
> > * Maybe you could leave some TSSOP54 or similar pad for soldering on a
> > SDRAM chip..?
>
> > * What are the three larger chips for? (one is M25P40 I assume)
>
> > A further simplification would be to rid of the rs232, leds, and the
> > dc power jack. Dc power can be had from the dil-40 pins.

I'd buy 2 or 3 if it had twice the number of pins.  So instead of a
1x20 header strip on each side there would be a 2x20 header strip per
side.
-Dave Pollum

Dave

It's possible to do as the chip has enough I/O but it would need
microvias and extra layers in the pcb to achieve that and that all
comes at a cost. However we will see how many we ship and if the
numbers are large enough then doing these sorts of things may be
possible and keeping the low cost aspect.

In the future we will be having some bigger "on the bench" boards that
compete against boards like the Spartan-3 Starter Kit but that's not
for a while. We have some more interesting "concept boards" yet to
release before that happens.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.

On 7 Dec, 13:21, Dave Pollum <vze24...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Dec 6, 9:55 am, John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > The M25P40 is the standard serial flash memory fitted. So there is
> > some capacity to run a Microblaze etc.. I'll have to check the
> > footprints but I think we can go to 16Mbit and possibly 32/64 Mbit as
> > options.
>
> > Power can be put in the pin header as an option and variants of the
> > board with straight pins are an option we are considering offering.
>
> > If you don't want the RS232, pins etc, then maybe the Craignell series
> > are better for your application. They are smaller take the shape of a
> > standard DIL/DIP (28,32,36,40 pins available) and very minimalist.
> > Otherwise they are identical to the Drigmorn1.
>
> > Leaving a site for something else is a possibility the future. We may
> > also do a companion board to do some more.
>
> > John Adair
> > Enterpoint Ltd.
>
> > On 6 Dec, 10:54, posedg...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > > On Dec 5, 6:19 pm, John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > > > We have been promising this for a while and I am finally pleased to
> > > > show first images and details of Drigmorn1 herehttp://www.enterpoint.co.uk/component_replacements/drigmorn1.html. We
> > > > are aiming this to be the cheapest develoment board out there so if
> > > > know any cheaper do let me know. We have some more testing to do
> > > > before we let it out in the wild but hopefully that will be complete
> > > > before Christmas to allow shipment before the holidays.
>
> > > > Use of this board is simplistic. A simple 5v jack for power and a
> > > > RS232 interface to allow control by a PC using a terminal emulator
>
> > > Why use 40 MHz when most other Xilinx FPGA boards are fitted with 50
> > > MHz.?
> > > (would ease code portability)
>
> > > * Maybe you could leave some TSSOP54 or similar pad for soldering on a
> > > SDRAM chip..?
>
> > > * What are the three larger chips for? (one is M25P40 I assume)
>
> > > A further simplification would be to rid of the rs232, leds, and the
> > > dc power jack. Dc power can be had from the dil-40 pins.
>
> I'd buy 2 or 3 if it had twice the number of pins.  So instead of a
> 1x20 header strip on each side there would be a 2x20 header strip per
> side.
> -Dave Pollum- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Hello John,

Does  Enterpoint  have something like this: http://wacco.mveas.com/ ?

THX, B.