Trying to select a development board, can somebody help me m

[chthon]

Hello,

I am trying to decide what board to order for a project I want to do between April and June in school, and for other projects, mainly to exercise VHDL and design interesting projects. The school project itself is the design of a general purpose DSP data path.

I have currently staked out the following boards, based upon the features I need and the price.

Digilent | Atlys |
Enterpoint | Drigmorn-3 |
Xilinx | 3A Starter kit |
Enterpoint | Drigmorn-2 |
Xilinx | 3E Starter kit |

However, also delivery time and ease of ordering are somewhat necessary, and three of the five boards come from the US, while 2 come from the UK, and I live in Belgium.

On the other hand, the Drigmorn boards do not feature a video output (whatever type), which is also something I would like to have.

And then there is the choice of FPGA:

LX16 XC3S700A
Logic cells: 14579 13248
Slices : 2278 5888
Block RAM : 576 360
Distributed RAM: 136 92

Since a LX16 seems to have less slices than a XC3S700A, does that mean that the LX16 will reach its maximum earlier than the XC3S700A? Conversely, does the lesser amount of distributed RAM on the XC3S700A mean that it could be that in a pipelined design it has less possibilities than the LX16?

I must say, that if I have to select purely on price, this would certainly favor the Drigmorn-2, but does the choice of the XC3S700A FPGA in that case limit me in my design choices?

And another point, I only own a MacBook Air anymore, with Linux on Virtualbox and ISE inside it, but how does this translate in my choices for programming the selected board?

Regards,

Jurgen Defurne

 

[Frank Buss]

chthon wrote:

I am trying to decide what board to order for a project I want to do between April and June in school, and for other projects, mainly to exercise VHDL and design interesting projects. The school project itself is the design of a general purpose DSP data path.

I have currently staked out the following boards, based upon the features I need and the price.

Digilent | Atlys |
Enterpoint | Drigmorn-3 |
Xilinx | 3A Starter kit |
Enterpoint | Drigmorn-2 |
Xilinx | 3E Starter kit |

I have the 3E starter kit and it is nice, but depends on what you need.
It is from Xilinx, so it works with your ISE installation (if USB works
from within your VM installation, but should be no problem). The
advantage is that it has many peripheral components intergrated on the
board and a VGA connector.

But if you need e.g. just 16 colors, you could easily build your own VGA
output with a R2R network (that's what they are using on the starter kit
anyway), or attach a LCD display, and then you could buy a cheaper kit,
like this nice one:

http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&No=593

This uses a Cyclone FPGA from Altera. I have this, too, and it is
awesome. I think for beginners the Quartus IDE is easier than the Xilinx
IDE, especially the MegaWizard is nice.

--
Frank Buss, http://www.frank-buss.de
piano and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/frankbuss

 

[Joel Williams]

Since a LX16 seems to have less slices than a XC3S700A, does that
mean that the LX16 will reach its maximum earlier than the XC3S700A?
Conversely, does the lesser amount of distributed RAM on the XC3S700A
mean that it could be that in a pipelined design it has less
possibilities than the LX16?

The Spartan-6 has a different architecture to the Spartan-3*, so it's a
little tricky to compare them directly using some of these numbers. If
you have an existing design, you can try implementing it on the two and
see how well it maps to either architecture.

In general, the Spartan-6 is newer and better, and adds some hardware
(PLL, SERDES), which may or may not be useful to you.

On the other hand, the Drigmorn boards do not feature a video output
(whatever type), which is also something I would like to have.

As Frank said, a VGA output port can be quite easy to add on. If you're
interested in HDMI/DVI, it will be a lot easier to buy a board that
includes this facility.

Personally, I've found that while not the cheapest board by a long shot,
the Digilent ATLYS currently offers the best value for money (at least
in the Xilinx space) if you qualify for the academic discount as it
includes quite a large chip (XC6SLX45), DDR2, gigabit Ethernet, four
HDMI ports (two input, two output), and high speed I/O. I've written
some notes on the board here: http://tristesse.org/DigilentAtlysResources

I've also compiled a list of cheap development boards:
http://tristesse.org/CheapFPGADevelopmentBoards

And another point, I only own a MacBook Air anymore, with Linux on Virtualbox and ISE inside it, but how does this translate in my choices for programming the selected board?

I use ISE through Windows on Parallels Desktop and there are no problems
whatsoever. Make sure you use one the supported Linux distributions (and
a supported version of that distribution - this will not necessarily be
the latest!) and you shouldn't have too much trouble with ISE.

Some non-Xilinx boards use their own JTAG adapter and proprietary
software, so make sure a Linux/Mac version is available. Alternatively,
you can get a Xilinx Platform Cable USB II (or something that pretends
to be one) and you should have no trouble using Xilinx iMPACT directly.

Joel

 

[Kolja Sulimma]

On 4 Jan., 19:52, chthon <jurgen.defu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello,

I am trying to decide what board to order for a project I want to do between April and June in school,
I have currently staked out the following boards, based upon the features I need and the price.

Digilent   | Atlys          |
Xilinx | 3A Starter kit |

However, also delivery time and ease of ordering are somewhat necessary, and three of the five boards come from the US, while 2 come from the UK, and I live in Belgium.

Atlys boards are in stock at trenz electronic in Germany:
http://shop.trenz-electronic.de/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1_114_119&products_id=829&language=en

and so is the 3A starter kit:
http://shop.trenz-electronic.de/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1_47&products_id=130&language=en

Regards,

Kolja

 

[John Adair]

Jurgen

Have you seen our ADV7202 module http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/moelbryn/modules/adv7202.html?
and does that cover what you want to do? We also have a HDMI solution
on the way that might of interest to some people.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.


On Jan 4, 6:52 pm, chthon <jurgen.defu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello,

I am trying to decide what board to order for a project I want to do between April and June in school, and for other projects, mainly to exercise VHDL and design interesting projects. The school project itself is the design of a general purpose DSP data path.

I have currently staked out the following boards, based upon the features I need and the price.

Digilent   | Atlys          |
Enterpoint | Drigmorn-3     |
Xilinx     | 3A Starter kit |
Enterpoint | Drigmorn-2     |
Xilinx     | 3E Starter kit |

However, also delivery time and ease of ordering are somewhat necessary, and three of the five boards come from the US, while 2 come from the UK, and I live in Belgium.

On the other hand, the Drigmorn boards do not feature a video output (whatever type), which is also something I would like to have.

And then there is the choice of FPGA:

                 LX16   XC3S700A
Logic cells:     14579  13248
Slices     :     2278   5888
Block RAM  :     576    360
Distributed RAM: 136    92

Since a LX16 seems to have less slices than a XC3S700A, does that mean that the LX16 will reach its maximum earlier than the XC3S700A? Conversely, does the lesser amount of distributed RAM on the XC3S700A mean that it could be that in a pipelined design it has less possibilities than the LX16?

I must say, that if I have to select purely on price, this would certainly favor the Drigmorn-2, but does the choice of the XC3S700A FPGA in that case limit me in my design choices?

And another point, I only own a MacBook Air anymore, with Linux on Virtualbox and ISE inside it, but how does this translate in my choices for programming the selected board?

Regards,

Jurgen Defurne

 

[jpendlum]

It looks like you have a Xilinx preference, but if you willing to try othe
FPGA vendors, Terasic.com has some surprisingly low-cost Altera FPG
development boards.

I bought their DE2-70 board and really like it. It is in your price rang
and has some of the features you want, such as video out. It has a Cyclon
IV FPGA that is much larger than the Spartan FPGAs you mentioned. Also
Altera's free version of Quartus II (their synthesis/place&route tools
supports the device on the DE2-70.

As far as delivery time, they are based in Taiwan. Mine took a few week
for delivery to the US.

Good luck!

Hello,

I am trying to decide what board to order for a project I want to d
betwee=
n April and June in school, and for other projects, mainly to exercis
VHDL=
and design interesting projects. The school project itself is the desig
o=
f a general purpose DSP data path.

I have currently staked out the following boards, based upon the feature
I=
need and the price.

Digilent | Atlys |
Enterpoint | Drigmorn-3 |
Xilinx | 3A Starter kit |
Enterpoint | Drigmorn-2 |
Xilinx | 3E Starter kit |

However, also delivery time and ease of ordering are somewhat necessary
an=
d three of the five boards come from the US, while 2 come from the UK, an
=
I live in Belgium.

On the other hand, the Drigmorn boards do not feature a video outpu
(whate=
ver type), which is also something I would like to have.

And then there is the choice of FPGA:

LX16 XC3S700A
Logic cells: 14579 13248
Slices : 2278 5888
Block RAM : 576 360
Distributed RAM: 136 92

Since a LX16 seems to have less slices than a XC3S700A, does that mea
that=
the LX16 will reach its maximum earlier than the XC3S700A? Conversely
doe=
s the lesser amount of distributed RAM on the XC3S700A mean that it coul
b=
e that in a pipelined design it has less possibilities than the LX16?

I must say, that if I have to select purely on price, this would certainl
=
favor the Drigmorn-2, but does the choice of the XC3S700A FPGA in tha
case=
limit me in my design choices?

And another point, I only own a MacBook Air anymore, with Linux o
Virtualb=
ox and ISE inside it, but how does this translate in my choices fo
program=
ming the selected board?

Regards,

Jurgen Defurne

---------------------------------------
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