Dear newsgroup,
I am quite new to FPGAs but experienced enough in digital ASIC design (VHDL, Verilog & stuff). Recently, we encountered some problems with the selection of the best FPGA for a design we are attempting. The design in question is a custom CardBus module, for which we are considering a Cyclone FPGA from Altera. The functionality of the module is not too complex. Beside the bus-related requirements themselves (CIS, ConfigSpace), we also need a FIFO. The bigger the FIFO, the better. Is Cyclone an appropriate choice for this application, or are there better solutions out there? Another issue is the time necessary for the FPGA to load its configuration, which can be as high as a couple of seconds. As far as I read in an earlier discussion on the newsgroup, this might be a big problem since the system software will power down the socket after seeing that the card does not respond within a short interval after insertion (less than 1 sec). Is there any reliable solution to this problem? If not, I am afraid the only choice is to try with the flash-based FPGAs from Actel, which does not come in too handy. I don't like the idea of paying for the Actel software, which is not even that good like ISE or Quartus. And the Actel parts seem to be much too expensive and difficult to program.
Looking forward to any suggestion,
Michael