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Discussion Groups | FPGA-CPU | Choosing FPGA
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).
Choosing FPGA - usertogo - Mar 23 14:57:00 2004
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Hi Folks I am new to this list and the FPGA world (not counting my experience using PAL/GAL and some little Lattice ISP CPLD). Obviously I am very excited about the capacity to implement (if necessary) even a CPU/Microcontroller inside one of today's higher density FPGA. I will see about how much of that will become necessary and I already put my loving eye on the JOP from Martin Schoeberl et al. (cause I am a strong OOP and Java advocate => general code reusability). => http://www.jopdesign.com/ Before I share with you some information and a cordial invitation to join the project , let me put my questions forward: I have been eying the smaller Altera Cyclone devices, for one because they are still available in TQFP packages. However I am concerned about 1.5 volt logic in Automotive applications – is there reason to be worried? Is the Cyclone series truly the most competitive solution as far as the price performance ratio is concerned? Of course I am asking personal Opinions – if you do want to discrete about them – I am happy about personal replies too! Now what is the PROJECT ALL ABOUT ? The project was founded a little over a month ago but is the product of almost two years of intense investigation and discussion. Out of the members of some of the other lists where we are developing these plans, we quickly gained ~45 subscribers (however most of them may be completely new to the FPGA world too). This is the official description as seen at: http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/GoBox The GoBox is a set of electronic subassemblies to control the Motor functions of Experimental Vehicles. Our principal definition of experimental vehicles is: Those using Internal Combustion Engines that aim to replace significant amounts of hydrocarbon fuel (Gasoline, Propane [LPG], <a href= http://www.greenfuels.org/bioindex.html traget=n>Biodiesel</a>, <a href= http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/challenge/methane/ target=m>Metane</a>) with recyclable <a href= http://not2fast.wryday.com/thermo/water_injection/water_chemistry.txt target=i>Water</a> and products of its <a href= http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/electrol.html terget=e>electrolysis</a> such as Hydrogen, Oxygen and ion combinations. But we are also open to people that are planning to use our controller completely differently. That's why the designs are grouped in 3 categories: The Logic Module (LM), One or more Sensing Modules (SM), One or more Power Modules (PM). The Specification describes the components starting from their interfaces (Connectors). Programs and Logic (Microcontroller and FPGA) by definition use translatable High Level Languages (C++, Java, VHDL) to prevent to be 'Architecture-locked'. The component designs and programs are released under a Hardware Open Source License. Join the GoBox Group if you want to be a part of the development of the described hardware platform - regardless of your application of this technology. While a large part of the attention will be on the Electrodynamic control of the Hydrolysis, there will also be provisions to drive and control other aspects such as injectors or ignition systems. Investigate the <a href= http://groups.yahoo.com/group/watercar/ target=w>Watercar</a> Group, which may be considered our non- technical base. Thanks for your attention! Tobias Gogolin, Student and Inventor |
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Re: Choosing FPGA - Martin Schoeberl - Apr 10 6:53:00 2004
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Hi Tobias, > Before I share with you some information and a cordial invitation to join the project , let me put my questions forward: I have been eying the smaller Altera Cyclone devices, for one because they are still available in TQFP packages. However I am concerned about 1.5 volt logic in Automotive applications - is there reason to be worried? No, there is no real difference between 1.5 V or 2.5 V core logic in automitive applications, besides less power consumtion with lower core voltage. Anyway, you have to build good EMC protection for your device, but that's another (long) story. I did this for a railway project (OEBB) with the Cyclone and you end up with a lot of passive protection parts. > Is the Cyclone series truly the most competitive solution as far as the price performance ratio is concerned? Of course I am asking personal Opinions - if you do want to discrete about them - I am happy about personal replies too! I'm personal very happy with these devices. Moderate price and VERY fast. You can get it a little bit cheaper (but with half the performance) with the 'old' ACEX devices from Altera. I haven't used Xilinx Spartan very much, so someone else has write a statement on them. Cheers, Martin |
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Re: Choosing FPGA - Tobias Gogolin - Apr 13 16:51:00 2004
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Thanks Martin You are probably referring to real 4 layer boards with power and ground plane and lots of decoupling capacitors? I realized now that Altera mentions Automotive as one of their targeted applications... If EMC Protection is such a long story do we already have a links collection about that ? I remember I had seen some pages on your site about some problems with startup ? I by the way am eying a different approach to the one you implemented with the regular flash memory... I think I like the serial config EEPROMS (very small and designed for the FPGA) and they specify some mode that one can read the unused data after the configuration, since I want to connect an inevitably oversized external DRAM chip (whatever is more available 64, 128, 256 MBit chip SD or DDR RAM) I could then simply copy any code I would like to use for a potential internal CPU core into the RAM and work with linear memory. So far I figure up to 384kBytes of program memory should be plenty (considering 1Mbit for FPGA and rest of a 4Mbit device for Code)? Then Again I don't know how much for libraries and JVM if I was to use your JOP design ? cheers Tobias ----- Original Message ----- From: "Martin Schoeberl" <> To: <> Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2004 04:53 Subject: Re: [fpga-cpu] Choosing FPGA > Hi Tobias, > > > Before I share with you some information and a cordial invitation to > join the project , let me put my questions forward: > I have been eying the smaller Altera Cyclone devices, for one because > they are still available in TQFP packages. However I am concerned > about 1.5 volt logic in Automotive applications - is there reason to > be worried? > > No, there is no real difference between 1.5 V or 2.5 V core logic in > automotive applications, besides less power consumtion with lower core > voltage. Anyway, you have to build good EMC protection for your device, > but that's another (long) story. I did this for a railway project (OEBB) > with the Cyclone and you end up with a lot of passive protection parts. > > > Is the Cyclone series truly the most competitive solution as far as > the price performance ratio is concerned? Of course I am asking > personal Opinions - if you do want to discrete about them - I am > happy about personal replies too! > > I'm personal very happy with these devices. Moderate price and VERY fast. > You can get it a little bit cheaper (but with half the performance) with > the 'old' ACEX devices from Altera. I haven't used Xilinx Spartan very > much, so someone else has write a statement on them. > > Cheers, > > Martin > > To post a message, send it to: > To unsubscribe, send a blank message to: > Yahoo! Groups Links |
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Re: Choosing FPGA - Martin Schoeberl - Apr 14 3:35:00 2004
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Hi Tobias, > You are probably referring to real 4 layer boards with power and ground > plane and lots of decoupling capacitors? > I realized now that Altera mentions Automotive as one of their targeted > applications... I did not mean the FPGA board itself. Yes, it is carefully routed 4 layer board, that I'm using in a kind of CPU-module. The EMC protection is on the IO board, where the CPU-module is plugged in. You can find an example for some protection in the basio schematics. But for the railway project I added more protection circuits. > If EMC Protection is such a long story do we already have a links collection > about that ? I remember I had seen some pages on your site about some > problems with startup ? No, I have no good link collection. I allmost got all information from books and some during the EMC certification in the lab. The startup problem is not an EMC problem. It was just not documented by Altera how much current the Cyclone will drive during startup. And Cyclones of their first lots (last year) did need much more current. And I got 50 pcs from that lot. And they had an application note, where they described a circuit to generate the 1.5V that did not work for those Cyclone. They responded to this problem just by removing the application note from their web site :-( But I found a solution to solve this problem ;-) > I by the way am eying a different approach to the one you implemented with > the regular flash memory... > > I think I like the serial config EEPROMS (very small and designed for the > FPGA) and they specify some mode that one can read the unused data after the > configuration, since I want to connect an inevitably oversized external DRAM > chip (whatever is more available 64, 128, 256 MBit chip SD or DDR RAM) I > could then simply copy any code I would like to use for a potential internal > CPU core into the RAM and work with linear memory. That's ok too. I was thinking about your approach, but it is not documented how to read the rest of the serial flash memory or how to program it WITH the FPA. That's the thing I want to do: Download a new FPGA configuration while the FPGA is running, probably over the Internet. It is technical possible to do this with the Cyclone and the serial flash since it is possible with NIOS, but no documentation to do it without.... However, Antti (an FPGA guru) has found some information about that issue. Standard FLASH devices are cheaper than the serial one, but the additional MAX 7064 is not so cheap. > So far I figure up to 384kBytes of program memory should be plenty > (considering 1Mbit for FPGA and rest of a 4Mbit device for Code)? That should be enough for FPGA configuration, Java program and some user data. The EP1C6 configuration needs (uncomressed) 148 KByte. > > Then Again I don't know how much for libraries and JVM if I was to use your > JOP design ? > Not very much. However, it depends on your application. You get a 'Hello World' in a few KB. A full application, such as the railway thing, with multi threading, a TCP/IP stack and web server,... now needs 56 KB. Cheers, Martin ---------------------------------------------- JOP - a Java Processor core for FPGAs: http://www.jopdesign.com/ > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Martin Schoeberl" <> > To: <> > Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2004 04:53 > Subject: Re: [fpga-cpu] Choosing FPGA > > Hi Tobias, > > > > > Before I share with you some information and a cordial invitation to > > join the project , let me put my questions forward: > > I have been eying the smaller Altera Cyclone devices, for one because > > they are still available in TQFP packages. However I am concerned > > about 1.5 volt logic in Automotive applications - is there reason to > > be worried? > > > > No, there is no real difference between 1.5 V or 2.5 V core logic in > > automotive applications, besides less power consumtion with lower core > > voltage. Anyway, you have to build good EMC protection for your device, > > but that's another (long) story. I did this for a railway project (OEBB) > > with the Cyclone and you end up with a lot of passive protection parts. > > > > > Is the Cyclone series truly the most competitive solution as far as > > the price performance ratio is concerned? Of course I am asking > > personal Opinions - if you do want to discrete about them - I am > > happy about personal replies too! > > > > I'm personal very happy with these devices. Moderate price and VERY fast. > > You can get it a little bit cheaper (but with half the performance) with > > the 'old' ACEX devices from Altera. I haven't used Xilinx Spartan very > > much, so someone else has write a statement on them. > > > > Cheers, > > > > Martin > > > > > > > > To post a message, send it to: > > To unsubscribe, send a blank message to: > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > > To post a message, send it to: > To unsubscribe, send a blank message to: > Yahoo! Groups Links |
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