Recommended FPGA Families & Tools?

I'm just getting into FPGA design. What are good FPGA vendors in terms of good chips, good tools and good support?

Also, if you've used the Cypress PSoC mixed analog & digital chips & tools, how did you find them?

- Chris

Reply to
Chris Graham
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Not claiming wide or deep knowledge of this subject but the Spartan 3 Starter Kit

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is a pretty good value.

Their Webpack software suite is on the CD with the starter kit or available as a (large-ish) download.

Other good resources at

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and
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Rich Webb   Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

The two major vendors in the market today are xilinx and altera who produce roughly equivelent devices from simple pals to system on a chip scale fpga'a with all the design/simulation software provided. There are differences in the design of the fpga's between to the two manufacturers and my opinion is that xilinx produce the more sophisticated devices with features such as 18x18 hardware multipliers ,multiple i/o standards and core voltages as low as 1.2 volts they are however corespondingly more expensive.Altera devices are similar but I always get the feeling that they are always one step behind in producing new features.Other manufacturers are firms like Cypress,philips etc

Reply to
Jezwold

Start here

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The two big vendors are Altera and Xilinx

Altera

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free software quartus2 web edition

Xilinx

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free software xilinx web pack

xilinx based boards

Xilinx Spartan3 starter kit with a 200K gate spartan3 fpga. US$99 Made by

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who make addon boards including usb , ethernet, adc, other modules like Hbridges , breadboard, wirewrap boards etc

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also have boards (amoung many others)
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Alex Gibson

Reply to
Alex Gibson

philips ? Philips sold their cplds to xilinx, see coolrunner2 and xpla / coolrunner

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others include Actel , Atmel , Lattice , for a list of manufacturers

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Alex Gibson

Reply to
Alex Gibson

While Xilinx and Altera are probably slated as the "two major vendors", there are still very good offering from companies like Actel

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QuickLogic
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and Lattice
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Each have their own postiive and negative attributes. Each have their own flavors of engineering boards. Some have higher speed units (Actel offers parts approaching 500MHz speeds), etc.

Dave

Reply to
starfire

The one that I know of that's really different is Actel, which produce FPGA's based on non-volatile memories, either EEPROM or anti-fuse (the others are all RAM). The non-volatile aspect gives an advantage for some applications because they are instant-on, unlike a RAM-based part which must be configured. They are also much more sensitive to the needs of the military/space/aviation customer.

However, the design flow for an anti-fuse part becomes much more like an ASIC, with much greater attention being needed for verification because a boo-boo means burning and turning a chip, rather than just loading up a new configuration.

--
Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
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Reply to
Tim Wescott

Did I saw philips? sorry Ive got them on my mind at the moment:)

Reply to
Jezwold

Chris:

Atmel offers 32 MC, 64 MC , 128 MC CPLDs -ATF15xx Family for 5V,

3.3 V Applications. If you need an 8-bit Micro + FPGA look no further than the FPSLIC ; Atmel has a Tools Promo- 50% off for FPSLIC .
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Hey if you go with a Xilinx or Altera FPGA, think of an Atmel Configurator to configure your SRAM based FPGAs
Reply to
Yad

While I love Atmel's AVR chips, their licensing costs for System Designer or the FPGA syntesis packages are way too expensive for us little guys as compared to similar offerings from Altera or Xilinx.

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Rich Webb   Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

Get an STK594 $99 (or is it still half price?). Write two app notes per year, and you have a free license for ever... It will be extended for 6 months per app note

-- Best Regards, Ulf Samuelsson snipped-for-privacy@a-t-m-e-l.com This message is intended to be my own personal view and it may or may not be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB

Reply to
Ulf Samuelsson

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