Looking for an extremely cheap FPGA board (in quantity, academic use)

altime video-rate JPEG encoding on a DSP instead of having to code it up in= verilog, and ran across this...

0...

e buttons...

e headers.

aced by jumpers, and 63 i/o is actually really generous at this sort of lev= el. Most of the entry-level boards are seriously miserly in comparison.

ssing they're already cut to the bone at this price...

thought you'd be interested.

That is _really_ close to what we are looking for, just the headers as switches thing doesn't quite work. And I'd really like a bit more output LEDs. But very encouraging that what we want is possible, thanks so much for the pointer!

Mark

Reply to
Mark Brehob
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realtime video-rate JPEG encoding on a DSP instead of having to code it up in verilog, and ran across this...

buttons...

headers.

by jumpers, and 63 i/o is actually really generous at this sort of level. Most of the entry-level boards are seriously miserly in comparison.

guessing they're already cut to the bone at this price...

thought you'd be interested.

Mark - you asked earlier about Lattice Diamond software. I've used Lattice parts a lot for the last 5 years and Diamond since it came out. It works fine, not perfect, and nothing like as many whizzo features as the Xilinx stuff but it's cheap and it doesn't crash (at least for me.)

I would much rather work with Lattice parts than X or A, it's all well short of the bleeding edge and for just getting the job done at a reasonable cost it's fine.

Michael Kellett

Reply to
MK

Hello,

Tried to use Lattice software for several years now. It never worked. At first it did not work, because my windows installation was too old, and they did not have a linux install. I gave it a try at my brother's laptop, which was a bit more recent software-wise. Unfortunately their license is locked to the boxes' MAC address, so I had to wait for a year, to be able to apply for a new one. On that box it did not work either... unsure why. Recent versions of lattice diamond are available for linux, so I gave it a try again. Synplify(the synthesis tool) failed with a SIGILL. It turns out it requires a SSE2 box. Synplify is a synthesis tool, that is included in diamond. For some parts it is the only practical choice... It is produced by 'synopsys', and they do not mention any instruction set requirements on their website...

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The other synthesis tools supported are: Precision: 3rd party (`mentor graphics`), not included, MachXO2 not supported. Lattice LSE: Lattice Synthesis Engine, included. Available only with MachXO, MachXO2, and Platform Manager.

I did not try those, as they don't support LatticeXP parts... they _probably_ work.

All in all, things have improved. It might work on your common, everyday box.. if it isn't too old.

regards, JK

Reply to
Johann Klammer

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I have no idea why you could not get their tools to work. I have never had trouble installing the tools other than the license issues which are common to all of these vendor supplied tools. I have also never had trouble with getting duplicate licenses for new computers. I don't know why you felt you needed to wait a year. In fact, when I ask for a license renewal, they send me a license file for every machine I have ever registered with them!

The only real issue with any of the vendor packages are the IDEs which can be different. Typically they try to emulate a Windows look and feel with some sort of a file manager-like GUI and some icons for the various files and/or processes of compiling code to produce a bit stream.

The "classic" ispLever is a little clunky in some ways, but it has never gotten in the way of doing work. I have yet to try Diamond.

As to using schematic for any part of a design, I would point out that schematic for even top level design is rarely used in industry. It has notable disadvantages with the lack of potability at the top of the list. I suppose I can see why you might prefer it for teaching since it is very visual, but in the "real" world this will not be encouraged. Structural HDL is not hard to learn or use really. So why teach techniques that are unlikely to be used?

Rick

Reply to
rickman

OK, one other thing is that due to export restrictions, no vendor's free software can run on 64-bit operating systems. There are ways to hack links to libraries on Linux to get around this for Xilinx web pack software, apparently.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

I've been burnt by this. Xilinx use a proper plug and play driver for their= parallel cable IV and will therefore work with a very cheap PCI parallel p= ort card. ALTERA don't, their driver insists on the parallel port being whe= re IBM put it in IO space 30 odd years ago.

Colin

Reply to
colin

(snip on FPGA programming)

Go through the binary code of the driver and replace the port number with the desired, different, port number.

I suppose that could also change something else, but it might work.

-- glen

Reply to
glen herrmannsfeldt

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