FPGA newbie thread..number 1099 (or yet another one of these ?) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: mfny
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 11, 2013, 03:09:15 am
content: Have noticed there are a few of these themed threads on here however I need to add to the pile as I am a bit lost. Looking to make entry into the FPGA world and therefore looking for a decant dev/eval board to learn on/play with.Done a fair bit of googling and searching on these forums and so far I have "picked up" on the following:- Digilent and Terasic have good value boards but the documentation and examples can be broken, I do not like the idea of ether of these being an issue especially in a learning tool,- Alot of the interesting cheap non "mainstream" boards( Xess, Mojo etc) have no distribution outside of the US which makes shipping awkward/expensive (am in the UK)- Altera has the best tools(guess this is subjective in a way but I like what I read about theirs vs Xilinx)- Lattice deliver good value boards/chips however are very much less of a known quantity then the big two which may affect me in particular being a newbie.However picking up on the above leaves me a bit lost as to how to proceed..

author: marshallh
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 12, 2013, 03:14:23 am
content: The sample code for the dev boards is typically "look at the pretty colors" type demo crap. Usually not something you want to learn from.Get a DE0-nano which should be sufficient until you have a better idea what you need.If you have no objective in mind, you'll easily become discouraged and bored. Pick a project involving the fpga and finish it.

author: mfny
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 12, 2013, 05:20:25 am
content: Quote from: marshallh on September 12, 2013, 03:14:23 amWhat about the issue of broken documentation ? I bumped into a fair few complaints that various documentation from Digilent and Terasic was poor on the QC front with wrong pinouts and the like. Doesn't fill me with a huge amount of confidence. Unless the DE Nano for sure suffers from nothing like this ?As to what Id have in mind, FPGA "emulation" of a basic Motorola 680x0 system would be something Id be interest in in the longer term. Also various audio related projects would also initially spring to mind as well.

author: marshallh
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 12, 2013, 05:43:35 am
content: I've used DE0, DE0-nano, DE2, DE2-115 and some expansion cards and haven't run into a pin problem. Can't speak for the Digilent boards. I used to have one but sold it after getting fed up with ISE.

author: mfny
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 20, 2013, 10:56:22 am
content: Anyone aware of European/uk sellers for the likes of the Xess and Mojo boards, and any other low cost(sub £40 would be ideal) decently supported FPGA starter boards ? Altera preferred.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2013, 11:50:32 am
content: To emulate a 68k system you will need a fairly large fpga... And you will have to get your hands on a core... That may not be easy

author: mfny
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 20, 2013, 12:48:59 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 20, 2013, 11:50:32 amWell with the decrease in budget id have to start smaller project wise I know this.I am trying to make it so I can get a few FPGA/MCU dev boards or 1 of one and 2 of the other or any of the other many combinations I guess. This is easy on the MCU side with many available for around £10 - £15, not so much on the FPGA side.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2013, 06:44:11 pm
content: I recall learning from somewhere (maybe the Amp Hour) about the bookFPGAs!? Now What?from Dave Vandenbout. It uses very interesting small board (XuLA fromXESS) that can be plugged into a breadboard. Maybe that is a start. Ah, the book can be downloaded from their site.