FPGA Development Board Wish List

In/Out channels for HDTV (HDMI or DVI) TMDS signalling would be great.

TI has popular tx and rx phys. I'd love to get into digital video manipulation but lack the connectivity. This could make it happen.

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weeks

If you have any particular part numbers let me know. We have had a few requests in this area so it is a possibility and so we will have a look and see if there is a good part/s to start supporting.

John Adair Enterpoint Ltd. - Home of Broaddown2. The Ultimate Spartan3 Development Board.

I think it's the Texas Instruments TFP501 and TFP510 (Rx and Tx) that are popular TMDS choices. These came up with similar parts using a keyword search on DVI on the TI website.

I like the 12-bit DDR interface option for the Spartan-3 parts, personally.

Not waiting for 3E?

- John Handwork

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Cool ;)

For the obvious : Some DDR is a must (A memory socket on the other hand is not that useful imho), as well as an RS232 level uart and a network interface (with a auto mdi/mdix phy would be nice ...)

Video outputs, as suggested video output would be great. I think that it would be nice to have both digital and analog. The ADV7322 looks nice for the analog part.

Another useful stuff would be a AC97 codec like the UCB14xx, they provide Audio IN / Out with mixer etc ... That one even provides a touch screen interface !

What about a PCI slot in which you could plug stuff in ?

Also don't forget a flux capacitor. Event thought it's originally design to be mounter on Dolorean, I'm sure it will fit (just be aware of the current requirements ;)

Sylvain

Footprint for a Panel Link LVDS transmitter to drive TFT LCD panels. These are available cheaply surplus, and great fun to play with, but the easy-to-drive ttl-interface ones are much harder to find than the now near-universal LVDS panels. (Data rate is probably too high to drive the LVDS directly from the FPGA)

You can never have too many switch inputs to select modes etc. when experimenting - BCD rotary switches are useful here.

Unfortunately we seem to run of Flux Capacitors. We burn out the last we had doing the first MINI-CANs which we delivered from design start to fully tested working prototypes, on customer site, in 18 calendar days. If you come across a good supply let me know as I like to see the Enterpoint keep on meeting these impossible timescales that some of our customers demand.

Back in the real world I will have all these interfaces looked for either the Raggedstone1 or module inclusion. Some of what you want is already there in the Raggedstone1 but I will let you guess what.

John Adair Enterpo>> Representing a manufacturer of development boards I am going offer you

You will be able to have BCD switches in RS1 in a similar fashion to Broaddown2 through DIL Headers. The LVDS area we are looking at for a customer project already and depending on results there we make some kind of implementation suitable for RS1. If there is enough interest I will see if we can do a TechiTip on it.

John Adair Enterpoint Ltd. - Home of Broaddown2. The Ultimate Spartan3 Development Board.

easy-to-drive

panels.

I'm not so sure it's too high. At least for medium sized panels. Even if it's too high for "direct" implementation of the serializer, I think I saw an application note at Xilinx where they used the DDR registers in the IOB so that the internal serializer logic only runned at half the serial clock speed.

I wish I had some hw to test that ;)

Sylvain

easy-to-drive

panels.

..but for a dev/prototyping system, the interfaces need to be not unduly hard to use. From a starting point of never having done anything on an FPGA, and never having written a line of VHDL, I got a TTL-input TFT panel displaying stuff in a day. I doubt I could have got an LVDS interface going anything like that quickly!

A Panel link chip means you just need to provide a clock at a sensible rate (40-70MHz), 3 sync signals and parallel RGB data. It's also much more portable than doing low-level fiddling with IOBs.

It also means you don't need to have a scope that can see the LVDS high-frequency signals as you can talk to the panel link chip as if it was a ttl-style panel.

easy-to-drive

panels.

to use.

having written a line of

have got an LVDS

(40-70MHz), 3 sync

low-level fiddling with IOBs.

high-frequency signals as you can

Sure, for a dev board that might not be the easiest way, but if you're trying to do something compact, that may save some board estate. Plus it's not _that_ harder if in the board package comes the serializer VHDL code. Then as input you have the exact same input as your ttl panel and as output, the iobs ;). The disavantage is that one of your bank has to be 2.5V. and you only use a few signal from that bank.

Sylvain

For analog video input ADV7402A is the best choice with it's RGB digital output ports..

John, I had a look at the Broaddown2 module, and one item I couldn't see was a user Flash device - although the platform flash can be used for user data it's sometimes convenient to have a physically seperate flash, and these days you can get some large storage, physically tiny SPI devices.

Also as an asside, I was interested to see your note on the US & UK export regulations - can you expand any details on that? Top Secret pinout on the edge connectors :-) or regulations on the FPGA?

Regards, Chris

John Adair ( snipped-for-privacy@replacewithcompanyname.co.uk) wrote: : Representing a manufacturer of development boards I am going offer you all : the chance to have your say on what is goes into our new product : Raggedstone1 and it's supporting modules.

: What I can tell is that the board is very cheap and takes what we think are : some of the best attributes of the our existing Broaddown2 and MINI-CAN : products. Like them it is also a Spartan-3 board (why another! - well you : just have to wait and see when we start revealing features in about 4 weeks : time). We have also included ideas based on existing customer feedback on : the Broaddown2 and MINI-CAN products.

: We are now in the last week of layout and have found some small areas of : board space that we might stick something on. So do your worst and suggest : (politely please) what we might give you in features. Even if your idea is : too big, or expensive, for Raggedstone1 itself then it may make our add-on : module list or even the next higher end Broaddown3/4 product launches.

: John Adair : Enterpoint Ltd. - Home of Broaddown2. The Ultimate Spartan3 Development : Board. :

Well you might be pleasantly surprised by the new board.

EAR, to use the acronym, affects some leading edge-ish semiconductors if you onward ship the devices or products made from them. Items that can be "dual use" especially can be affected, "Dual Use" refers to an item finding its way into military kit when it's origional function was purely commercial. It is conceivable that FPGA development boards could be used for something outside their intended use because they are user programmable. More of a problem that say a PCI card with a fixed function.

The US also have embargoed countries that technically can't be shipped to.

Failure to observe these regulations can bring fines and I believe imprisonment. Someone from the US may say that my understanding is incorrect and I don't claim to be any expert in these matters.

John Adair Enterpoint Ltd. - Home of Broaddown2. The Ultimate Spartan3 Development Board.

How about a Marvell 4 port Ethernet switch (linkstreet) so that you can build a real internet host... they aren't that expensive and can be an option if your desperate.

It is strictly an MII interface so it can be treated as a PHY except it can receive TX_CLK and RX_CLK which makes it nice for an FPGA. I know this as I am just starting to connect one to a S31000. Simon

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We will have a look at this as a module. We already have and ethernet module planned so maybe a multichannel might be better.

John Adair Enterpoint Ltd. - Home of Broaddown2. The Ultimate Spartan3 Development Board.

If this board has either an ADV7400 or an ADV7402 on it, as well as a large S3, it has my name on it. I pity the poor fools who try to buy one first [grin].

Simon

It's a good module but their data is under NDA .. silly but I guess its a competitive market.

We use the 7 port device with 4 built in PHY's (going to a quad RJ45 with built in XFMR's) and one Ethernet connected to a PPC and one to the FPGA. With QOS, VLAN and bridging you get a lot of features for little cost. The reversed PHY connections also make it better for an FPGA as the FPGA generates the rxc and txc clocks, but as its a switch, with buffering, the clocks don't need to vary as a normal PHY will do.

I should have a working prototype MAC running in next week but its a very specific one for my company allowing full speed 100 MBS full duplex ... I convinced my Boss to get a Memic S31500 demo board with a broadcom PHY... no where near as good or easy to use as the Marvell and they put the chip under the LCD so you can't even look at the pins... but beggars can't be choosers.

Simon

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I had a 2 min pass at the part and if I understood it correctly (I didn't find a datasheet I could access) we need about 40 I/O on the Spartan-3 side. It would good as a module if it where less than 38. Otherwise it does look a good chip for us to support or even the adv7403 that looks to be superceeding it.

John Adair Enterpo>> For analog video input ADV7402A is the best choice with it's RGB

Would you happen to know where to find theses for experimenting ? I don't have any particular project in mind I just want to hook up one of theses to experiment with. But I don't see them at digikey/mouser/farnel ...

(And being outside US I can't have samples from TI directly)

Sylvain