[sdiy] New cheap FPGA development system

[James Patchell]

Oh, it is fast enough...I have had mine for about a month now...very cool....

Working on getting the microblaze running on it.

At 01:27 PM 5/25/2006 -0700, Harry Bissell Jr wrote:
>Iplayed with this system yesterday at a Xilinx
>training class.  Its pretty cool... but I don't know
>if it is fast enough for a hardware synth.
>
>It could easily be a controller... and had eprom on
>board so that once programmed it could stand alone.
>
>H^) harry
>
>--- Eric Brombaugh <ebrombaugh at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > Looks like Xilinx has a new FPGA development system
> > for their Spartan3E
> > chips:
> >
> >
>http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xebiz/designResources/ip_product_details.jsp?key=HW-SPAR3E-SK-US&sGlobalNavPick=PRODUCTS&sSecondaryNavPick=BOARDS
> >
> > Quick summary:
> >
> > * 500Kgate FPGA (includes 20 18x18 multipliers,
> > 360kbits RAM, 232 I/O pins).
> > * 128Mbit parallel flash, 16Mbit serial flash,
> > 64MByte DDR SDRAM.
> > * USB, Ethernet, RS-232, JTAG, VGA & generic I/O
> > connectors.
> > * Lights! Buttons! LCD! Switches! Power supply!
> > * Free WebPACK software + 60-day evals of the
> > full-up tools.
> >
> > Cost: $150
> >
> > Probably wouldn't be a bad way to get into
> > hardware-based digital synth.
> > You would need to build your own audio codecs though
> > since they're not
> > on this board. One nice thing is that the USB
> > interface can be used to
> > program it, rather than requiring you to invest
> > another $150 for their
> > JTAG download cable.
> >
> > Want a fun starter project?
> > * Go to Aaron Lanterman's pages, grab the schematics
> > for the Synergy
> > (http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~lanterma/synergy/)
> > * Code it up in HDL for an FPGA
> > * ???
> > * Profit!
> >
> > Just kidding :)
> >
> > Eric
> >
> > James Patchell wrote:
> > > In case somebody hasn't mentioned it...but there
> > has been a bit of a
> > > change in the Xilinx ISE software pricing
> > structure....
> > >
> > > Foundation is still $2500...
> > > However, the mid priced (~$800) XBase software is
> > no longer
> > > available... :-(
> > >
> > > But it was replaced by WebPack...which is FREE!
> > :-)
> > >
> > > WebPack now works with the Xilinx EDK (Embedded
> > Development
> > > Kit)...i.e...microblaze, etc...so, for $500 you
> > can have a software
> > > development system for FPGA based controllers.
> > >
> > > Oh, yes...WebPack also includes the Xilinx Core
> > Generator
> > > now...(finally)...and it includes a CORDIC engine
> > which can be used
> > > with a phase accumulator to generate sin waves.
> >
> >

         -Jim
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