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
CPLD/FPGA with Linux
Started by ●October 22, 2009
Reply by ●October 25, 20092009-10-25
Reply by ●October 25, 20092009-10-25
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 --------------------------------------- This message was sent using the comp.arch.fpga web interface on http://www.FPGARelated.com