FPGA Development Board

In my opinion Altera has better (more stable) software tools while Xilinx has a broader base of users (more popular). You will probably not show up on either companies radar so which distributor gives you best support might be the answer.

gm

comp.arch.fpga would be a better Usenet Group for this question.

Altera & Xilinx are less different than PIC & AVR. Both have good products, and both do a good job of making the other have good product (healthy competition).

The Altera Cyclone-III or the Xilinx Spartan3 development boards (available directly from the manufacturer) would be good choices for a beginner.

G=2E

Look at

They have very nice tutorials to get going with either Altera or Xilinx. They also have demo boards with examples.

Regards Anton Erasmus

Thanks to all,

I think I will go for the Spartan 3 board by Digilent Inc.

A few more questions: The manufacturers info says that 200- 400 and

1000 versions are available. I assume this means number of gates. Is 400 (gates?) a lot for a beginner?

Can the fpgas in such a board normally be exchanged, i.e. can I later put in a 1000 gates in the same board?

thanks t.

Depends on what you do. If you write your own code, its a lot. If you use complex external IP or perhaps the System Generator for DSP, thinks are getting smaller

If it is a TQFP package, it can be done, but no for the faint hearted. For BGA, you need expensive rework tools.

Bye

--
Uwe Bonnes                bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik  Schlossgartenstrasse 9  64289 Darmstadt
--------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------

Check out Altium's NanoBoard. They have interchangeable FPGA modules - from both Altera and Xilinx!

Regards,

--
Mark McDougall, Engineer
Virtual Logic Pty Ltd, 
21-25 King St, Rockdale, 2216
Ph: +612-9599-3255 Fax: +612-9599-3266

I was in the same position a few months back

I chose Xylinx because the company I work for use their FPGA's in our=20 products. I picked up the Digilent BASYS system at

(NO I DONT WORK FOR THEM)

I think its around $70 USD if memory serves me right. The Xylinx web pack is freely downloadable ...

I think Xylinx does FPGA's and Altera is CPLD's like the EPM series. In most cases the design language is VHDL, and your not really too=20 concerned about the underlying FPGA as long as it provides the resources to implement your design

PIC vs AVR vs M68K is C and Assembly and your dealing with processor issues

I've never heard of "Xylinx."

-a

I wasn't going to spend my time correcting the response by samiam, but I have to now because some moron wants to waste eveyone's time by quiping, "I've never heard of Xylinx." Way to go loser, ha ha, he said Xylinx when it is really supposed to be Xilinx. If that's all you have to add, next time just think it to yourself so you won't look like such an ass.

Anway, since both the OP and samiam are clearly new to the FPGA scene... It is spelled Xilinx. Altera does make both FPGAs and CLPDs, so does Xilinx, there are other great FPGA companies that offer more to the lower end cutomers like LatticeSemi. Any dev board from $100 to $150 will get you past the first couple of years of learning. When you buy a dev. board make sure the free version of the vendor's software can program your device. Also, look at comp.arch.fpga as that is the best place for FPGA related questions. I would trend towards Xilinx since they have the largest user base that can help you, but for your first designs it doesn't matter at all.

By the way, you can program FPGAs in many languages, VHDL, Verilog, JHDL, System-C, C, System-Verilog, etc. I would learn verilog if I had to start over again becuase it is less obtuse than VHDL is.

And yes it is exactly like the many different microcontroller options but no to the same degree. Under the hood they are completely different devices, and if you wanted to program the device at the lowest level, assembly for uCs and instantiating primitives for FPGAs, programs would be non-portable. All newbie programming is done at a higher level in HDL which is completely portable like C is.

---Matthew Hicks

Please do not top-post. Your answer belongs after (or intermixed with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all irrelevant material. See the following links:

--
  
  
  
    (taming google)
    (newusers)

Thanks Matthew, I=B4m now convinced and wil definitely go for the Xilinx S3Board.

By the way, did anyone buy this from diligent lately?

I=B4m not sure if they deliver with USB-JTAG cable or if I should buy this separately. Tried digilent sales/support but still no answer. If someone know, I would be glad for a comment...

regards t=2E

I bought an XUP Virtex 2 pro board from them that has a built-in USB programmer and it came with the USB cable. (Opps I top-posted again.)

---Matthew Hicks

Lighten up, Francis.

-a

You always get one who gets on his high horse. If you cant play nicely you can go to bed without any supper. Kids !

In news:468bad77$0$12817$ snipped-for-privacy@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au timestamped Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:22:49 +1000, Mark McDougall posted: "temujin wrote: > Can the fpgas in such a board normally be exchanged, i.e. can I later > put in a 1000 gates in the same board? Check out Altium's NanoBoard. They have interchangeable FPGA modules - from both Altera and Xilinx! "

That looks great, and it supports more manufacturers than just Altera and Xilinx and it also supports CPLDs. It is a pity that it is (at least for FPGAs) restricted to some particular small devices which Altium supports, and also that it does not seem to provide as much support to swap hardcore microprocessors. Any suggestions for such a fancy evaluation board, which could accept devices in the future which the evaluation board manufacturer did not even hear of?

Thanks for the mention of Altium's NanoBoard anyway. It is worth considering.

Regards, Colin Paul Gloster

Now I got a reply from Digilent...they say the S3Board does not ship with JTAG to USB cable, so this would be extra...

The guy at Digilent recommended their new NEXYS board (for beginners) which come with USB interface. I might have a look at that.

temu