Experiences with Memec V2Pro Board

the

purchase,

we use that same board with VP20 for many purposes, its very good value for the price. VP20 is big enough, so the VP20 vs VP30 decision is yours and depends on budget. V4FX boards will defenetly not be available this year not even for preorder so if you need to place the order this year then this memec board is possible the best solution specially when you already have the sysace module and p160 boards you can use.

we have a uclinux version working on this board, but using our simple bootloader to load the image from systemace

Antti

Antti, Thanks for the reply. I kept on thinking about my possible purchase after I posted, and also looked thru some of the Virtex4 data sheets. The Tri-mode Ethernet Media Access Controller looked to be a compelling reason for me to wait till next year. Yes, I know I said I needed to order before the end of the year. Another FPGA vendor gave a presentation about custom ASIC blocks in their FPGA fabric that they might initially fill with an Ethernet MAC(s). I thought that was a good idea, I wish Xilinx would do something like that. It appears that they are.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your VirtexIIPro experience with me. I do appreciate it.

-Newman

adapter.

after

before

with

:) yes AGREE, if the money you can use is not of that kind that you *must* spend before the end of the year, then it makes sense to wait for V4FX - but prepare for some waiting, there is no direct info when FX based boards would come out. I wasnt able to wait so I ordered the V4LX from Avnet to get V4 taste, unfortunatly did rush too much, should have ordered ML401 thats a real nice piece of hardware for the $499

Antti

We use the VP20 development boards from Memec-Insight.

Overall we are very please with the boards.

The biggest problems we had with Memec-Insight themselves. We ordered two boards, first got one Rev 1 board with a -5 FPGA (that had ENG SAMPLE stamped on it), even though they promote it with a -6 FPGA. A few weeks later we got a Rev 2 board with a -6 FPGA. After several weeks we where able to exchange the Rev 1 board, but now got a Rev 3 board (even though we asked for a Rev 2 board). It was important to us to have two 100% identical boards so we can load the same bit file on them. The Rev 3 uses a ATMEL Flash and a CPLD, the Rev 2 a Platform Flash from Xilinx ....

Anyway, not a big deal, just an inconvenience. If you are just getting one board it will probably not matter. Nice development platform, we make a lot of the P160 expansion boards and love it.

Best Regards, rudi ============================================================= Rudolf Usselmann, ASICS World Services,