Selecting a starter FPGA board

Hi to all

I haven't touched FPGAs or VHDL since the university years so I was 
thinking to get a starter board in order to get back to the path. I did 
find some cheap boards out there but I am not sure if I could burn 
something like a 32-bit RISC soft core on that. I mean how many logic 
blocks (for example of the Xilinx architecture) would be needed for a 
project like this, assuming that it is of the size of an OpenSPARC? 
Could you suggest me a cheap board (up to $400) with some good features 
and maybe an FPGA capable of hosting a good-sized core. Also good 
features would be VGA,PS/2,ethernet. Thanks

Best regards
GM

gm <gm@nomail.com> wrote:
 
> I haven't touched FPGAs or VHDL since the university years so I was 
> thinking to get a starter board in order to get back to the path. I did 
> find some cheap boards out there but I am not sure if I could burn 
> something like a 32-bit RISC soft core on that. 
(snip)
> Also good features would be VGA,PS/2,ethernet. Thanks

I recently got a Digilent Spartan3E board, which was the
XC3S500E.  There are many boards with VGA, serial, and PS/2
keyboard, but not so many with ethernet.

That might be a little small for some 32 bit processors,
if you want a lot of extra logic (ethernet MAC, video generator),
but if you keep the rest of the design small it might fit.

I plan to start with smaller processors (such as the 8080)
and work up to larger ones.  Maybe the 68020 wouldn't be
so big (maybe even microcoded), or a small SPARC.  
UltraSPARC is probably too big.

-- glen

On Feb 1, 11:27=A0am, gm <g...@nomail.com> wrote:
> Hi to all
>
> I haven't touched FPGAs or VHDL since the university years so I was
> thinking to get a starter board in order to get back to the path. I did
> find some cheap boards out there but I am not sure if I could burn
> something like a 32-bit RISC soft core on that. I mean how many logic
> blocks (for example of the Xilinx architecture) would be needed for a
> project like this, assuming that it is of the size of an OpenSPARC?
> Could you suggest me a cheap board (up to $400) with some good features
> and maybe an FPGA capable of hosting a good-sized core. Also good
> features would be VGA,PS/2,ethernet. Thanks
>
> Best regards
> GM

OpenSPARC is truly huge, so it may not fit into any board below $400
budget (unless it is special university discount board)
ok, i take it back, even with educational pricing the board cost $750

xilinx s3 500 is enough for 32 bit cores/base desing, but something
with s3 1000+ size is better if you some more peripheral features

now, it depends how quickly do you want the board, if i would be
buying a new FPGA eval board, i would defenetly
wait til the Spartan-6 evaluation boards are available (i know when
they have been promised to be ready but
can not tell this before the info comes public), ok, i can say that it
probably may fit your desired deadline
to wait the spartan-6 board. as the new technologies make the LUT/$
ratio better there are chances you
get more LUTs for the $ spend on the eval board. There are some other
considerations why it makes sense
to get an Spartan-6 or Virtex-6 based board :)

Antti

> now, it depends how quickly do you want the board, if i would be
> buying a new FPGA eval board, i would defenetly
> wait til the Spartan-6 evaluation boards are available (i know when
> they have been promised to be ready but
> can not tell this before the info comes public), ok, i can say that it
> probably may fit your desired deadline
> to wait the spartan-6 board. as the new technologies make the LUT/$
> ratio better there are chances you
> get more LUTs for the $ spend on the eval board. There are some other
> considerations why it makes sense
> to get an Spartan-6 or Virtex-6 based board :)
> 
> Antti
> 

I am not in a rush (this is not job-related, it is more for practice and 
as a hobby) so I can wait and maybe save money for getting something 
better. Until then I could do some practice with VHDL simulations. So, I 
think I am going to follow your advice Antti! Thank you Antti and Glen 
for your advices

Best Regards
GM

gm wrote:

> I am not in a rush (this is not job-related, it is more for practice and 
> as a hobby) so I can wait and maybe save money for getting something 
> better. Until then I could do some practice with VHDL simulations.

An excellent idea.
If you can write synchronous code and verify it
with a vhdl testbench, you will be ahead of the game,
whatever you decide to do.

  -- Mike Treseler

Antti

I don't think any boards supporting the next families will be
available generally for a some time but tomorrow might tell us
different. I expect we will be one the first to have such a product
but that's not giving anything away.

Meanwhile it's worth pointing out to Euro and Dollar countries our
products are now much cheaper due to our currency and $400 goes a long
way. I would think we stand a chance of possibly doing something under
US$400 that might do an OpenSparc. It's more a question of whether the
full ISE is needed or Webpack can be used. Do you have a size for
OpenSparc?

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.



On 1 Feb, 12:40, Antti <Antti.Luk...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 1, 11:27=A0am, gm <g...@nomail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi to all
>
> > I haven't touched FPGAs or VHDL since the university years so I was
> > thinking to get a starter board in order to get back to the path. I did
> > find some cheap boards out there but I am not sure if I could burn
> > something like a 32-bit RISC soft core on that. I mean how many logic
> > blocks (for example of the Xilinx architecture) would be needed for a
> > project like this, assuming that it is of the size of an OpenSPARC?
> > Could you suggest me a cheap board (up to $400) with some good features
> > and maybe an FPGA capable of hosting a good-sized core. Also good
> > features would be VGA,PS/2,ethernet. Thanks
>
> > Best regards
> > GM
>
> OpenSPARC is truly huge, so it may not fit into any board below $400
> budget (unless it is special university discount board)
> ok, i take it back, even with educational pricing the board cost $750
>
> xilinx s3 500 is enough for 32 bit cores/base desing, but something
> with s3 1000+ size is better if you some more peripheral features
>
> now, it depends how quickly do you want the board, if i would be
> buying a new FPGA eval board, i would defenetly
> wait til the Spartan-6 evaluation boards are available (i know when
> they have been promised to be ready but
> can not tell this before the info comes public), ok, i can say that it
> probably may fit your desired deadline
> to wait the spartan-6 board. as the new technologies make the LUT/$
> ratio better there are chances you
> get more LUTs for the $ spend on the eval board. There are some other
> considerations why it makes sense
> to get an Spartan-6 or Virtex-6 based board :)
>
> Antti

On Feb 1, 1:55=A0am, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> gm <g...@nomail.com> wrote:
> > I haven't touched FPGAs or VHDL since the university years so I was
> > thinking to get a starter board in order to get back to the path. I did
> > find some cheap boards out there but I am not sure if I could burn
> > something like a 32-bit RISC soft core on that.
> (snip)
> > Also good features would be VGA,PS/2,ethernet. Thanks
>
> I recently got a Digilent Spartan3E board, which was the
> XC3S500E. =A0There are many boards with VGA, serial, and PS/2
> keyboard, but not so many with ethernet.
>

You can upgrade to the xc3s1200e for only $20. I only wish they had
used spartan 3a's so you could upgrade to the 3800 dsp. Those chips
are actually cheaper than the 3e1200

jonpry@gmail.com wrote:
(snip, I wrote)

>> I recently got a Digilent Spartan3E board, which was the
>> XC3S500E. ?There are many boards with VGA, serial, and PS/2
>> keyboard, but not so many with ethernet.
 
> You can upgrade to the xc3s1200e for only $20. I only wish they had
> used spartan 3a's so you could upgrade to the 3800 dsp. Those chips
> are actually cheaper than the 3e1200

It looks like the NEXYS2 has the 500 and 1200 option, with the
latter $40 more.  I don't see that option for the Spartan3E, though
maybe it was discontinued.

There is some hint on the Xilinx web pages of a 1600E option
for the Spartan3E board, but I don't see where to buy that one.

If you have the equipment, you could remove the 500E and install
a 1200E or 1600E (I believe they come in the right package).

-- glen

jonpry@gmail.com wrote:
 
> You can upgrade to the xc3s1200e for only $20. I only wish they had
> used spartan 3a's so you could upgrade to the 3800 dsp. Those chips
> are actually cheaper than the 3e1200

It seems that there was a Spartan3E board with the 3E1600
but it is now discontinued.

https://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavTop=2&NavSub=431&Prod=S3E1600

It looks amazingly similar to the 3E500 board, so I wonder
why it is discontinued.

-- glen

On Feb 2, 1:21=A0am, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> jon...@gmail.com wrote:
> > You can upgrade to the xc3s1200e for only $20. I only wish they had
> > used spartan 3a's so you could upgrade to the 3800 dsp. Those chips
> > are actually cheaper than the 3e1200
>
> It seems that there was a Spartan3E board with the 3E1600
> but it is now discontinued.
>
> https://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavTop=3D2&NavSub=3D431&P=
...
>
> It looks amazingly similar to the 3E500 board, so I wonder
> why it is discontinued.
>
> -- glen

it was too good for the price, so they discontinued it!
if it sells to good, then you have to re-stock too often
and who wants that?
solution is simple: stop selling the problematic item!

Antti