XUPV2P from digilentinc

I can't speak about obtaining the board, but it is a very good board with few negatives.

However, bare in mind that the free webpack will not program the xc2vp30 on the board. (At least WebPack 9.1 won't.) So that may mean $2,400 in tool costs.

Stephen

Ouch ouch ouch. I am not willing to fork out that amount for just testing water... Any other recommendation?

I found the following on the site:

Spartan-3 Starter Board Spartan 3E Starter Board Nexys-2

Any opinions on the boards? Pros and cons?

Thanks, John

It would help, if we would know what you're trying to do. The "old" spartan 3 starter boards are nice, as they have SRAM on it, which is very easy to deal with. The connector is also a standard .1" .

The it get more difficult with the newer Spartan3e, (DDR SDRAM). The Nexys and Nexys-2 have PSRAM on it, never tried, but it seems to be slower than a real SDRAM.

Personally, I don't like the proprietary USB-JTAG interface on the nexys boards. One more piece of software to maintain. Would prefer just the standard 20 pin header I could connect the standard programming cable.

There is also a new spartan 3a-dsp board out at xilinx's webpage (only $295). Check it out, if you really need something speedy ;-)

I like the digilent Spartan-3E and 3A boards. I own a 3E500 myself, and a 3E1600 at work. I also have the Spartan-3 PCIe board at work but never quite got to where I needed it for development.

The biggest question: what do you want to do with them?

If you want memory, for instance, look at the Xilinx Memory Interface Generator (MIG) for supported starter boards.

- John_H

Webpack 9.2 claims to support the XC2VP30. Also supports V5LX50, unlike 9.1 which only supports V5LX30. However it doesn't support the S3A DSP3400, while 9.1 does...

Odd...

- Brian

What do I want to do with them? Educate myself on FPGA. Hence I like to use the following:

1) Standard JTAG interfaces from Xilinx. I would like to be able to copy some of the existing schematics from the protoboard to my designs and work with it from standard JTAG. For example: - proprietary USB-JTAG interface on the nexys boards is a no no. 2) A speedy memory interface. 3) A large space for multiple cores....

Essentially the board must have most of the capabilities for the following work:

1) Plenty of i/o and adequate memory speed. example logic analyzer 2) Enough stuff for video and audio work. 3) DSP work.....

So far this is the kind of work I am aiming for on the board. So the first project on the board as exercise would be NTSC output :)

Regards, John

That's easy if you are satisfied with the standard Xilinx LPT jtag cable. The jtag connector is onboard. The schematic is here:

The user guide is here: Device family support and miscelanous:

Vasile

I own an original Xilinx/Digilent Spartan-3 Starter Kit (200K device) at $99 and since some months ago also a Xilinx/Digilent Microblaze Starter Kit (1600E device) at $295 and am very satified with both of them but of course it depends on what type of work you are willing to put in and how big projects you are aiming for.

For staying in the cheap but quite capable beginner to intermediate class I would recommend the original Xilinx/Digilent Spartan-3 Starter Kit BUT with the 1000K-circuit option. For a mere $50 more you get 5 times the logic so that's great. But this board only uses 1MB 100Mhz SRAM so it is not really suitable for Video-stuff of any resolution or actions like Filtering. Its not suitable for Operating system-labbin either 1MB is just too small for other than the most simplest system like the TRS-80, C64 or similar retro-stuff. No Ethernet and no USB. It uses the Parallell-cable for download Like an earlier post said its 2*20 0.1" connectors is just great, easy and cheap to play with. I've connected everything from speakers, external VGA-screens to Joysticks and SD-Card connectors this way!

For some more power and ALOT of logic I think the $295 1600E-based Starter-3E Kit is probably unbeatable for a non-student hobbyist. It just fits about every core you can think of and mostly give headroom for MORE. On the downside the external connector it uses a Hirose 100- pin FX2 connector that don't come cheap from a hobby-side view, like $25 for just a single connector if I remember correctly. One of the demos that come with the board is a ucLinux dist with FTP, Telnet- support! But for you to be able to make changes to its "hardware"-part in a resonably simple way you need the real license for the Microblaze- core and its tools and that will cost you $$.

Otherwise if you like Altera I think that their DE-2 Development-card seems just great for doing Multimedia stuff.

Hope this helps!

Best Regards Magnus Wedmark

vasile skrev:

I picked up a couple connectors from Digikey 1 year ago this Tuesday at $6.79 each. They still show up at the same price:

?name=H4324-ND

The Hirose connector form factor may be "inconvenient" for perf-board hobbyists, but we're getting beyond the age of simple perf-board circuits.

- John_H

Yeah this is a good feedback that I need:) Thanks,

John Chung

Why not get the FX2 expansion board from Digilent?

It's got the Hirose connector, ground plane, 0.1" grid plated-thru holes, supply lines and lots of I/O capability and only costs about $20. I've been using one with my Spartan3E starter kit for a few months now and it works quite nicely.

EB

it is a jewel! thanks :) John

It's not really proprietary. Well, the software is, but the hardware isn't - the nexys schematics show the USB details, unlike for the xilinx-partnered boards where the USB page is missing. I was able to get the open source xc3sprog utility working with it. It is kind of nice to have both power and programming in the USB cable.

But nexys also has the same single inline .100" header as the old spartan 3 kit, so you can buy their parallel port cable for $12 and use impact if you prefer.

Having both a plain spartan 3 kit and a nexys available, I find that for some purposes one is preferable, and for some the other... both were quite affordable (but would second the recommendation for the largest device each board supports)