Spartan-6 Boards - Your Wish List

Guys and Girls

Your chance to have input to what we bring to market as Spartan-6
products.

We have several release candidates nearly ready now but we can still
add or modify features and I am interested in features you would all
like to have in these boards either based on things we hve done before
in our product range or even new features you would like to see.

So go ahead and let us know what you want.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd. - Home of Merrick1. The HPC solution.

On Aug 9, 3:44=A0pm, John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
> Guys and Girls
>
> Your chance to have input to what we bring to market as Spartan-6
> products.
>
> We have several release candidates nearly ready now but we can still
> add or modify features and I am interested in features you would all
> like to have in these boards either based on things we hve done before
> in our product range or even new features you would like to see.
>
> So go ahead and let us know what you want.
>
> John Adair
> Enterpoint Ltd. - Home of Merrick1. The HPC solution.

if you could ship BEFORE Xilinx SP-601 availability,
there would be interest. if not.. sure there is still
place for more boards, but at the moment its the
time that counts, when would you ship?
guaranteed time of delivery?

can you answer that today?
[No]

I have ordered from those who have announced first,
only to find out that orders are accepted but fulfilled
way later (after competitors have better products)

Antti

John Adair <g1@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:

>Guys and Girls
>
>Your chance to have input to what we bring to market as Spartan-6
>products.
>
>We have several release candidates nearly ready now but we can still
>add or modify features and I am interested in features you would all
>like to have in these boards either based on things we hve done before
>in our product range or even new features you would like to see.
>
>So go ahead and let us know what you want.

I'd go for as few options as possible and loads of room for additional
circuitry and small pads to attach (enameled) wires to the FPGA. 

Whenever I start using a new microcontroller I make a prototype board
with the least possible features. The less features, the greater the
possibilities. If people want to do high-speed stuff they'll have to
make their own boards anyway.

-- 
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!"
--------------------------------------------------------------

Antti

At the moment all I can say is we don't have production amounts of
silicon available. The dates for production silicon arrival are still
flexible and confidential so we can't give any guarantees on dates for
boards as yet. xilinx probably will feed their own asembly first but
I'm sure we won't be far behind in our shipping.

To a dregree our product announcement will be linked to a reason
expectation of when we have silicon. There also questions of whether
customers want silicon without the fully fixed memory controller in
there.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.

On 9 Aug, 15:45, "Antti.Luk...@googlemail.com"
<Antti.Luk...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Aug 9, 3:44=A0pm, John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Guys and Girls
>
> > Your chance to have input to what we bring to market as Spartan-6
> > products.
>
> > We have several release candidates nearly ready now but we can still
> > add or modify features and I am interested in features you would all
> > like to have in these boards either based on things we hve done before
> > in our product range or even new features you would like to see.
>
> > So go ahead and let us know what you want.
>
> > John Adair
> > Enterpoint Ltd. - Home of Merrick1. The HPC solution.
>
> if you could ship BEFORE Xilinx SP-601 availability,
> there would be interest. if not.. sure there is still
> place for more boards, but at the moment its the
> time that counts, when would you ship?
> guaranteed time of delivery?
>
> can you answer that today?
> [No]
>
> I have ordered from those who have announced first,
> only to find out that orders are accepted but fulfilled
> way later (after competitors have better products)
>
> Antti

Nico

It's umlikely we would encourage direct soldering to development
boards principally because we might end up with warranty issues.
However it is very much in our tradition that we make a higher number
of I/Os "free of function" than our compeditors and that is very
unlikely to change. We are adding a little more to boards now than the
early days but that is driven by customer demand and not what product
lines we cover like disti board designs. When we can we do compensate
for the extra bits by design or bigger I/O packages so lot's of I/O
are left free.

If had not seen our boards up close our standard customer headers for
expansion is based on 0.1 inch (2,54mm) pitch headers. These headers
are also spaced on multiples of 0.1 inch.That layout allows stripboard
or simple add modules to be attached to the development board. The
headers work well at low speed and not so bad high speed as well. If
you also want a maximum I/O for customer use do have a look at our
Darnaw1 http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/moelbryn/darnaw1.html or
Craignell1/2 http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/component_replacements/craignell2.=
html,
http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/component_replacements/craignell.html.
Polmaddie1 also gives some of these features as do some other boards.
We do have long term plans for all of these products to extend into
Spartan-6 replacements as and when demand dictates and our engineering
team has time. It is our general policy to be "compatible" as we can
with older products so that any customer designed add-ons can be used
in later designs wherever that is possible. Our headers have evolved
in the last few designs and those seen on Mulldonnoch2
http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/oem_industrial/mulldonnoch2.html are going
to be the norm whenever we do that although some boards may not have
features like the user set regulator and all the ancillary fixed
voltages. The complete length strips of 0V/GND and 3.3V seem on
Mulldonnoch2 are now the minimum to be expected on boards supporting
headers. In general that would be Broaddown, Raggedstone, Drigmorn and
Merrick ranges.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.

On 9 Aug, 16:07, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:
> John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
> >Guys and Girls
>
> >Your chance to have input to what we bring to market as Spartan-6
> >products.
>
> >We have several release candidates nearly ready now but we can still
> >add or modify features and I am interested in features you would all
> >like to have in these boards either based on things we hve done before
> >in our product range or even new features you would like to see.
>
> >So go ahead and let us know what you want.
>
> I'd go for as few options as possible and loads of room for additional
> circuitry and small pads to attach (enameled) wires to the FPGA.
>
> Whenever I start using a new microcontroller I make a prototype board
> with the least possible features. The less features, the greater the
> possibilities. If people want to do high-speed stuff they'll have to
> make their own boards anyway.
>
> --
> Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
> indicates you are not using the right tools...
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0"If it doesn't fit, use a bigg=
er hammer!"
> --------------------------------------------------------------

On Sun, 9 Aug 2009 05:44:15 -0700 (PDT), John Adair
<g1@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:

>Guys and Girls
>
>Your chance to have input to what we bring to market as Spartan-6
>products.
>
>We have several release candidates nearly ready now but we can still
>add or modify features and I am interested in features you would all
>like to have in these boards either based on things we hve done before
>in our product range or even new features you would like to see.
>
>So go ahead and let us know what you want.

I'm looking for a standard high speed extension bus. I used the Avnet
exp to good results but these days FMC seems to be the new standard. A
LPC FMC connector header would be nice.
-
Muzaffer Kal

DSPIA INC.
ASIC/FPGA Design Services

http://www.dspia.com

John Adair <g1@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
 
< Your chance to have input to what we bring to market as 
< Spartan-6 products.
 
< We have several release candidates nearly ready now but we can still
< add or modify features and I am interested in features you would all
< like to have in these boards either based on things we hve done before
< in our product range or even new features you would like to see.

I was thinking not so long ago that it would be nice to
have a board ready to build a clock radio, including the
appropriate external parts for an SDR (software defined
radio, I believe).  The idea was a board for beginning and
intermediate EE/CS projects that could also be mounted in
a nice box for a completed project.  One could use or not use
the LED display and/or radio parts, as usual for such boards.

-- glen

We have been looking at the FMC standard but it does have a pile of
problems for us and our potential customers. This specification was
written by a group of people all from companies, in the same market
sectors, and with a very limited vison as a result. Problems as I see
it:

(1) The specification costs a lot to buy and will limit widespread
adoption and potential customer base.
(2) The format is very small even on the bigger version.
(3) A lot of on-module regulation will be needed further limiting what
else can be done on the module.
(4) On small and medium size devices, e.g. most Spartans, it uses up
most I/O that we would normally use for our own headers and we can't
maintain our support for existing customers.
(5) Connectors are very expensive and single source. I will say Samtec
is a very good supplier of connectors but even so if they go out of
business where are the connectors coming from.
(6) The currently available FMC modules are many times the price of a
potential Spartan-6 board especially a starter kit Spartan-6.
(7) There may be IP or licensing issues as a result of the way the
spec is controlled and owned.

That all said the attraction of common standard is a nice idea. I'm
just not sure of the practical and cost aspects of it as FMC currently
appears. There are so many connector standards that could have been
either reused or just used as is without a totally new standard. One
of my personal favorites is the PC104 connectors that we allready use
both in normal mode but also in custom fashions for some of our
products. We also do that just by FPGA configuration and that
selection doesn't affect the hardware aspects of our boards.

I think we will adopt FMC on our high end Spartan-6 boards and maybe
have an adaptor available for our low end. We are looking at the
practicality of that. Our Virtex-6 boards may have this as standard
but we debating that. We will also

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.

On 9 Aug, 21:11, Muzaffer Kal <k...@dspia.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 9 Aug 2009 05:44:15 -0700 (PDT), John Adair
>
> <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
> >Guys and Girls
>
> >Your chance to have input to what we bring to market as Spartan-6
> >products.
>
> >We have several release candidates nearly ready now but we can still
> >add or modify features and I am interested in features you would all
> >like to have in these boards either based on things we hve done before
> >in our product range or even new features you would like to see.
>
> >So go ahead and let us know what you want.
>
> I'm looking for a standard high speed extension bus. I used the Avnet
> exp to good results but these days FMC seems to be the new standard. A
> LPC FMC connector header would be nice.
> -
> Muzaffer Kal
>
> DSPIA INC.
> ASIC/FPGA Design Services
>
> http://www.dspia.com

As it happens one of our first release candidates may be quite good
for this. It will need an add-on module for the front end RF and maybe
our simple R/2R DAC module to drive a speaker but probably very close
to what you want.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.

On 10 Aug, 00:42, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
>
> < Your chance to have input to what we bring to market as
> < Spartan-6 products.
>
> < We have several release candidates nearly ready now but we can still
> < add or modify features and I am interested in features you would all
> < like to have in these boards either based on things we hve done before
> < in our product range or even new features you would like to see.
>
> I was thinking not so long ago that it would be nice to
> have a board ready to build a clock radio, including the
> appropriate external parts for an SDR (software defined
> radio, I believe). =A0The idea was a board for beginning and
> intermediate EE/CS projects that could also be mounted in
> a nice box for a completed project. =A0One could use or not use
> the LED display and/or radio parts, as usual for such boards.
>
> -- glen

On Aug 10, 1:42=A0am, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
>
> < Your chance to have input to what we bring to market as
> < Spartan-6 products.
>
> < We have several release candidates nearly ready now but we can still
> < add or modify features and I am interested in features you would all
> < like to have in these boards either based on things we hve done before
> < in our product range or even new features you would like to see.
>
> I was thinking not so long ago that it would be nice to
> have a board ready to build a clock radio, including the
> appropriate external parts for an SDR (software defined
> radio, I believe). =A0The idea was a board for beginning and
> intermediate EE/CS projects that could also be mounted in
> a nice box for a completed project. =A0One could use or not use
> the LED display and/or radio parts, as usual for such boards.
>
> -- glen

Hi john,

 I was thinking about the same: a nice board that will be able to do
SDR application so mean include at least one fast ADC and DAC
(>100MSPS, 200 would be better in order to play in FM bandwidth
without any analogic stage)
I am currently playing with a Terasic board : DE2-70 and using the
video ADV7123 as a DAC: I have been able to generate FM broadcast with
it,but I am now missing an ADC in order to do a loopback and analyze
what i generate. Like this a board including those component would be
able to do SDR applications, video applications, or things like a
scope, spectrum analyzer...
I have been thinking and a video ADC like AD9483 might be a good
choice as it offer 3 fast channel , the resolution is low but i
believe is enought for lab testing.
But if you add ADC/DAC on your board you should have as much output
channel than input , they should be same resolution and same clock
speed...

Can you tell us about the targeted price for you board is it like
around a few hundred euros/pound, or more a thousand?