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Discussion Groups | FPGA-CPU | Insight board (was Re: Yet Another RISC Design (YARD-1A))

This list is for discussion of the design and implementation of field-programmable gate array based processors and integrated systems. It is also for discussion and community support of the XSOC Project (see http://www.fpgacpu.org/xsoc).

Insight board (was Re: Yet Another RISC Design (YARD-1A)) - Mike Butts - Sep 29 23:15:00 2000

Brian Davis wrote:
>
> When I first looked at the Insight board, I'd hoped to stick
> an external synchronous SRAM on a daughtercard above the FPGA;
> alas, in all 160 pins of header there's nary a ground in sight-
> I don't think I'll be running any 100 MHz+ bus cycles there.

Damn! I have that Insight X2S100 board too, and hadn't looked
at the header pinouts yet. I just assumed they'd have grounds.
Shame on them! I've been planning on putting a fast SRAM or
DRAM or two out there.

There aren't any grounds on the top side near the headers, except
for a via or two. But there are plenty of good fat connections
available on the tantalum caps on the bottom. I may try soldering
an SRAM or DRAM down there, dead-bug style with 30 ga wire for
the signals.

Another kludgy but probably effective cure would be to sacrifice
some of the I/Os, and solder heavier solid wire from the tantalum
grounds to some of those header pins.

Thanks for exposing that rather severe shortcoming of the
Insight board.

--Mike






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Insight board (was Re: Yet Another RISC Design (YARD-1A)) - Brian Davis - Oct 1 19:34:00 2000

--- In , Mike Butts <mbutts@r...> wrote:
> Brian Davis wrote:
>> When I first looked at the Insight board, I'd hoped to stick
>> an external synchronous SRAM on a daughtercard above the FPGA;
>> alas, in all 160 pins of header there's nary a ground in sight-
>> I don't think I'll be running any 100 MHz+ bus cycles there.
>
<snip>
>Thanks for exposing that rather severe shortcoming of the
>Insight board.

I do like the Insight Spartan-II demo board; it was
the only XC2Sxxx board I could find, and the price was
right- it just doesn't look like they had high speed
I/O in mind when they laid it out.

However, I like the sound of their new Spartan-II PCI
card even better:

- XC2S150
- XC18V01 ISP configuration PROM
- 2M x 32 DRAM
- "DIME" expansion headers (plenty of ground and power)
- PCI interface
- DS-PCI32S-BRD $135.00 USD
(board only, no PCI core license) Insight :
http://www.insight-electronics.com/solutions/kits/xilinx

Nallatech ( creators of the DIME standard ) :
http://www.nallatech.com Brian Davis





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Insight board (was Re: Yet Another RISC Design (YARD-1A)) - Author Unknown - Oct 4 15:26:00 2000

> I do like the Insight Spartan-II demo board; it was
> the only XC2Sxxx board I could find, and the price was
> right- it just doesn't look like they had high speed
> I/O in mind when they laid it out.
>
> However, I like the sound of their new Spartan-II PCI
> card even better:
>
> - XC2S150
> - XC18V01 ISP configuration PROM
> - 2M x 32 DRAM
> - "DIME" expansion headers (plenty of ground and power)
> - PCI interface
> - DS-PCI32S-BRD $135.00 USD
> (board only, no PCI core license) > Insight :
> http://www.insight-electronics.com/solutions/kits/xilinx
>
> Nallatech ( creators of the DIME standard ) :
> http://www.nallatech.com

We just got an AVNETmarshall Xilinx Development System
(DS-FND-EXP-PC-SK-B/B) XCV-300 on a PCI-64bit card.) The board
exports 50 general purpose I/Os through some exotic AMP connector
(#177983-4), pretty much consigns us to buying a PCI receptable, and
tapping test-wires out of the PCI edge connector. (Unless someone
here knows of a company which makes an Amp 177983-4 -> 'standard I/O
header' cable.)

The development board with Foundation Express 2.1i costs $2495. (You
get free updates to the latest version for 1 year, when you register
the software with Xilinx.) Considering that the Foundation Express
sells for $2000 by itself, we thought it was a good deal (since we
need the Foundation Express software.)

We might give Insight's boards a try.
Is Nallatech's website password protected? I can't seem to access it.




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