[sdiy] uC with mul

[jbv]

patchell :

>     Xilinx does have free tools you can download from their website.  I assume
> that you were using the Foundation tools at work.  I have not downloaded the free
> Xilinx tools myself.
>
>     However, I have downloaded the free Altera tools.  When I downloaded the free
> altera tools, they would work up to 100,000 gate parts (ACEX), and I will tell
> you, you would be amazed at what you can put into one of those.
>
>     I have a couple of tubes of Xilinx XC4003A parts that I am still trying to
> figure out what to do with.  I wanted to put a top octave generator in them, but,
> for what I wanted to do, they were just a smidge too small (which surprised me,
> since you can put a lot even into 3000 gates, but for making counters, the thing
> ran out of fast carry blocks, some how).  I can, however, put two 24 bit phase
> accumulator type NCO's into the parts, so, I might use them for that.

Yep, the programmable logic is a tempting solution...
(BTW I'm wondering how much these Xilinx / Altera chips might cost...)

But for a DIYer with very limited time, a 16x16 multiplier looks like a better
choice (at least at the beginning) for several reasons :
1) I only have have a Mac at home (all development software run on Windoze AFAIK)
so I need to get a PC only for this project
2) I guess I need to get the development board + soft tools
3) I need to find the time to learn how to use them (or to understand at least a
little of
any code I might pick on the net)
4) I always had the feeling that these chips had weird surface mount packages that
make
them hard to implement on a PCB...

For the above reasons, a mul on a chip looks like a more attractive "plug & play"
solution... Besides, some Logicdevices chips can perform a 16x16 mul in 20 ns
AFAIR...
If my project works, then I might consider replacing the mul by some FPGA...
Does that make sense ?

And while I'm at it, here's another question :
if you guys need some FAST flash EPROM & RAM (both 64K x 16), which parts
would you choose ? I've seen some tempting AMD chips...

Thanks.

JB