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Searching FPGA board for private use

Hello,

I came in contact with FPGAs at the university and have done some designs. Now I decided to start with FPGAs in private because I'm really fascinated by their capabilities. I think designing a PCB for an FPGA is not simple so I decided to buy a board for my first (home) steps, but I've some requirement to that board, because flashing LEDs isn't really interesting... :)

It should be a Spartan3 1000 or above with a bootflash for a stand alone powerup and maaaany free pins to connect a lot of things. Things like clock oscillator and power supply are included on any board I think. The next point is external RAM. I'd like testing microblaze with uC linux but I never worked with linux, especially not with the uC version so I don't know how much external RAM is neccessary. Any suggestions? I've searched the web and only found a single board that has most of my requirements and can be paid by a student:

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Sorry, can't find the page in english. It has a Spartan3 1000 with Xilinx Plattform-Flash XCF04 and USB 2.0 transceiver. The only point I'm missing is the external RAM. So my question is, do you have any alterntive boards in mind that fits my requirements and can be paid? What do you think by the board above? Is it ok?

Thanks, Michael

Reply to
Michael Dreschmann
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There is a huge list of boards with FPGAs listed here:

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=================== Philip Freidin snipped-for-privacy@fpga-faq.org Host for

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Reply to
Philip Freidin

Michael Dreschmann schrieb:

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There is a Memory (and other things) extension for that board available:

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Kolja Sulimma

Reply to
Kolja Sulimma

"Kolja Sulimma" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:42ad2275$0$1125$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread4.arcor-online.net...

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the OP wanted a board with UC linux capability, what you suggest has too small memory to hold linux :(

Antti

Reply to
Antti Lukats

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The XESS XSA-3S1000 board might be another alternative. It has 32Mbytes of external SDRAM.

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--------------------------------- Steven K. Knapp Applications Manager, Xilinx Inc. General Products Division Spartan-3/-3E FPGAs E-mail: snipped-for-privacy@xilinx.com

--------------------------------- The Spartan(tm)-3 Generation: The World's Lowest-Cost FPGAs.

Reply to
Steven K. Knapp

Michael,

I don't know if this board is available in Germany, but the Avnet FX12 board might be ideal for you. Here are the features..

Virtex-4 FX12 (contains Power PC)

32MB DDR SDRAM 4MB FLASH 8Mb Config FLASH RS232 port 10/100 Mbps Ethernet port 128x64 display 8 LEDs 8 position DIP switch 2 push button switches 50-pin GPIO connection Power Supply

Best part is the cost .... $249. Here is the link (sorry it's so long)

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Reply to
Marko

Michael,

I don't know if this board is available in Germany, but the Avnet FX12 board might be ideal for you. Here are the features..

Virtex-4 FX12 (contains Power PC)

32MB DDR SDRAM 4MB FLASH 8Mb Config FLASH RS232 port 10/100 Mbps Ethernet port 128x64 display 8 LEDs 8 position DIP switch 2 push button switches 50-pin GPIO connection Power Supply

Best part is the cost .... $249. Here is the link (sorry it's so long)

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Reply to
Marko

Hello,

thanks for your good ideas. The Avnet Board Marko posted looks very interesting. The Problem is I didn't work with Virtex 4 yet. So it's difficult for me to compare it to Virtex 2 or Spartan 3. Can you give me a comparable Virtex 2 or Spartan 3 device with similar logic resources like Virtex-4 FX12, under the condition I use no specialized IP cores like some projects from opencores? I think there is a µC working µC links for Xilinx PPC available?

Thanks, Michael

Reply to
Michael Dreschmann

Try this site:

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Reply to
Evan Samuel

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