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Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2014 7:18 pm
by rwiker
I think the boards I found at tindie have actually been mentioned previously in this thread, but I don't think I've seen this one mentioned before:
http://numato.com/saturn-spartan-6-fpga ... -ddr-sdram
Spartan 6 LX45 at $140.
Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 3:05 pm
by BigEd
The BeMicro CV is a dev board for $49, with a Cyclone V FPGA (176kByte RAM) and 128MByte 16-bit wide SDRAM. It has 80 GPIOs and USB.
http://parts.arrow.com/item/detail/arro ... /bemicrocv
Probably 3V3 only - I can see no mention of it being 5V tolerant.

(via hackaday)
Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 6:01 pm
by BigDumbDinosaur
...Probably 3V3 only - I can see no mention of it being 5V tolerant.
I tracked down the
data sheet for the Altera FPGA that is the heart of this board. You correctly surmised that it is a 3.3 volt device (GPIO pins). The core voltage is even lower at 1.43 volts maximum. Guess it isn't going to work with POC V2.

Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 6:20 pm
by BigEd
I am curiously attracted to boards with 16-bit wide RAM...
Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014 5:24 pm
by zz_indigo
..
Nothing else on there apart from regs, 50MHz oscillator and the configuration chip (underneath), which personally is how I prefer it so that there is no dedicated hardware already allocated to pins.
Works really well for me, and enough on-chip to allow me to run several 6502 cores, or a full CP/M implementation with an external SRAM, serial interfaces and SD card etc...
Been so useful to me that I have bought several, and all are in use.
..l
I find alternative with Cyclone IV
+ More Keys 2 vs 1
+ More Leds 8 vs 2
+ More internal memory 270Kbit vs 117Kbit
+ Supported on newer quartus-II
- no power on headers (+5V power pins mostly on top side, no 3.3V power on headers)
= Power via USB or +5V power pins vs JACK
= Internal oscilator 25MHz vs 50 Mhz
on botom side config reload button.
Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014 5:36 pm
by zz_indigo
For simple computers i use this EP4CE6 kit.
- 16bit VGA (RGB 565)
- PS/2
- 4M x 16Bit x 4 Banks SDRAM
- 32M-bit Serial Flash
- 8bit A/D converter
- IR recivier
- 4 butons
- 4 LEDs
- 4 7-segment display (pins shared with LEDs_
- buzzer
- USB to serial converter (power via USB oe header)
pins used for VGA and PS2 on header
Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014 5:49 pm
by BigEd
They look good - do you have links to buy them, or part numbers to search for?
Thanks
Ed
Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014 7:58 pm
by zz_indigo
They look good - do you have links to buy them, or part numbers to search for?
Thanks
Ed
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Altera-Cyclone- ... 3f32c53d7c
Price is ~50$
http://www.amazon.com/Altera-CycloneIV- ... B00KLQCUY2
My local copy of documentation:
https://svn.mavipet.sk/svn/fpga_tests/HW/ZRtech/ (don't work on Internet Explorer. too secur setings)
Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014 8:48 pm
by BigEd
Thanks!
Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014 10:17 pm
by barrym95838
... (don't work on Internet Explorer. too secur setings)
Chrome (with default settings) doesn't trust your last link either.
Mike
Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 12:10 am
by Tor
That's actually a fault of Chrome, there's nothing inherently wrong with a self-signed certificate. The whole mess is because https mixes authentication with encryption when those are really separate issues. As long as you're not uploading private data (as with banking and payment institutions) it's pointless to have an 'authorative' certificate. But there you go. As we know a certain institution also has been shown to have direct access to the 'authority' on certificates and can inject man-in-the-middle attacks on the data stream. Not so with self-signed ones.
Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 10:28 am
by zz_indigo
... (don't work on Internet Explorer. too secur setings)
Chrome (with default settings) doesn't trust your last link either.
Mike
self signed certificate. A planing fixed it.
Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 8:13 pm
by BigEd
Hackaday now sell things, and in particular they sell an FPGA board for $49. It has a Spartan 6 LX9 and a 128k x16bit wide 10ns SRAM.
http://store.hackaday.com/products/ardu ... pga-shield
It's an open design - see the project page at
http://hackaday.io/project/38-Arduino-C ... PGA-Shield
Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 9:41 am
by BigEd
A spartan6 dev board is available from scarab hardware although presently out of stock.
minispartan6+ $75 or $105
Sister board:
minispartan3 $25 or $35
It has a 16-bit wide SDRAM on board.
See
http://forums.xilinx.com/t5/Xcell-Daily ... a-p/559300

Re: Survey of FPGA dev boards
Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 9:59 am
by BigEd
The Papilio boards range from $40 to $90, and there's a Computing Shield for $45 which offers lots of appropriate I/O connectors: VGA, PS/2, SDcard, stereo jack, joystick, serial.
http://store.gadgetfactory.net/fpga/
http://store.gadgetfactory.net/computing-shield/
http://store.gadgetfactory.net/compare/132/76/83
Dave Banks has just implemented a 2015 model Acorn Atom on Duo+Computing:
http://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic. ... 11#p110255
The Duo is like an Arduino with FPGA and a big SRAM:
- Spartan 6 LX9 FPGA
- Dual Channel USB 2.0 Interface
- 512KB or 2MB ISSI IS61WV5128 SRAM (8-bit wide)
- 64Mbit SPI Flash
- Atmel AVR ATmega32U4 - Arduino-Compatible Chip
- 54 I/O pins arranged in an Arduino-Compatible Mega Form Factor
- Digital Pins 0-16 Connected to FPGA and ATmega32U4
Interestingly, the page says that SDRAM is a lot more tricky, hence the choice of SRAM.