I'm trying to solve this problem for a one-off project. That said, I'm on a seriously restricted budget, $1000 is probably about the ceiling and anything I can save will make me a much happier camper.
I've got a target board that I'm trying to communicate with that takes
53 data lines, 10 address lines, and 16 control lines, all unidirectional LVTTL. I'd like to be able to push at least 20 Mbit/s into it from the PC. Also, the board has to be something that connects via a cable, not just a PCI card, as the device I'll be talking to has to be a few feet away from the PC.
I see two ways I can go about this. One is to have a decent sized memory buffer (1 MB or better) on the board. In this case I can use just about any protocol (though I'd prefer to work with USB or Ethernet) to push data onto the board, and then just say go. The other is to connect over to the PC via some protocol that can deliver a sustained 20 Mbit/s with guaranteed timing, such as USB 2, or Firewire, in which case I don't need any memory.
I would love with all my heart not to have to fab a PCB for this, or at least get away with just doing an easy two layer jobs for some last mile stuff. Anybody got a convenient off-the-shelf solution for this? I've contacted AvNet about some of their FPGA eval kits, but who knows how that's going to turn out.
Thanks, Rob