I've been a hardware (ASIC) engineer for the last
4 years, so I know all the basics of Verilog RTL coding, simulation, synthesis constraints, and the synthesis (netlist generation) design-flow. I've used Xess's XSV-300 and XS40-010XL+ FPGA-boards to do simple prototyping.I know my way around C (not C++), and I can probably struggle through a *tiny* bit of assembly, but honestly, I am no software engineer. I do know the basics of computer architecture (registers, "instruction pointer", branches, etc., what makes a CPU a CPU, etc.)
...
Now I want to do some 'self-study' on embedded CPU and firmware systems. That got me looking at Xilinx's EDK (and Insight's Spartan IIE-Microblaze kit.)
Hear's the problem -- the posts in this newsgroup worry me. It seems like the Xilinx EDK's audience is 'expereienced' firmware people. I.e., people who know the ins/outs of compiling/linking/"object relocation", and the dreaded "make-files."
And if you are trying to use the EDK with an 'unsupported FPGA board' (target), good luck! Are all my fears unfounded? Does the EDK come with a "embedded design for dummies" tutorial? Or is it so complex, would it frustrate Linus Torvalds himself?
I'm willing to do a little bit of learning while hair-pulling, but if the EDK just isn't for the novice, I'd rather not waste the $$$.