selecting FPGA

I'm relatively new to FPGA. I've learnt vhdl and done few designs in xilinx Spartan II fpga, xsa v1.2 board. I've been involved in robotics and have designed some robotic system (basically line tracking, odometry, PID etc) but those were microcontroller based.

Now I'm trying to work and do some research in FPGA based robotics system especially in vision systems and control system. Want to make a working robot with motion control, vision systems to what ever level I can within a year. (well that's the time I've to complete at least one robot with some basic systems.), I've few questions, and hope I'll get the answers!!!!!

i) The design loaded in FPGA is lost when the power goes out. So how can we preserve the hardware designed so that it need not be loaded again and again from PC.

ii) The robots we're going to make must be autonomous, and we can't use PC. So what would be the best FPGA board (preferebly from Xilinx), well I'm thinking of one supporting the microblaze.

Reply to
bish
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The modern Xilinx FPGAs can be loaded from a serial flash memory and the unused portion of that memory can be used for code storage for a processor like MicroBlaze. It is a good compact way to achieve a microprocessor circuit. We do this on a number of our products and a range of users, including some doing robotics, who are using ours boards in exactly this way.

We are actively looking at doing a derivative of our Craignell/ Drigmorn1 boards with some capabilities to control motors etc. and some basic ADC capability for robotic type applications. These boards are very small and can fit into small spaces if that is one of your limitations have a look at what we are doing. Details on these boards here:

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I'm interested to gauge interest in this type of product so that we can decide whether to bring a specialist product to market so if anyone else has interest please do contact us.

John Adair Enterpo> I'm relatively new to FPGA. I've learnt vhdl and done few designs in

Reply to
John Adair

A few strategies ...

(1) If you want to use Xilinx devices, you could always employ your own nonvolatile device (like an EEPROM) on the PCB, and hook it up to the FPGA. There are various app notes to show you how to do this. Alternately, some SRAM-based FPGAs come with nonvolatile components (built into the FPGA) to hold the configuration during power cycling. This solution is similar to the former case, except that the nonvolatile part is basically embedded in the FPGA. It shares the same drawbacks, though -- chiefly, the FPGA has to reprogram itself when the power cycles, and this may be a downside in terms of the downtime and current consumption required to reprogram.

(2) Alternatively, Actel produces flash-based FPGAs (where all of the configuration bits are flash cells) -- these devices hold their configuration when the power goes out. Since there is no need to reprogram the FPGA, this solution offers very minimal downtime during power cycling and has only minimal impact on current draw (since the FPGA doesn't have to reprogram itself).

K.

Reply to
Kris Vorwerk

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