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Discussion Groups | FPGA-CPU | What I want in an FPGA board
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).
Re: What I want in an FPGA board - Scott Williamson - Dec 28 21:06:00 2004
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re:"...RF & Video, may require something a bit more sophistocated than an R-2R network..." I am getting BEAUTIFUL COLOR NTSC composite video from a Spartan II with nothing more than 8 bits of 3.3v GPO and 16 resistors in R-2R configuration. It's surprising, there aren't even any irregularities in brightness ramps from the tolerance of the cheap resistors I'm using. No amplifiers, nothing. Scott Williamson ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Kent" <> To: <> Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 7:50 PM Subject: Re: [fpga-cpu] What I want in an FPGA board Hi Rob, Robert Finch wrote: >I hear ya. I've had to pick and choose what to include in my SoC and go with >simpler smaller hardware in order to get things to fit. > > >SDRAM is tricky to use. You need to use fifo's, cache's and burst ram access >to get any performance out of it. I think I'd prefer 512k x 32b sram. 2MB is >probably enough for a pared down version of linux. >How about putting a couple of SDRAM module connectors on the board (only 32 >bits would have to be connected up) then offering sram modules that could be >plugged into the same connectors. Since the FPGA IOs are reprogrammable it >could support either SDRAM or SRAM in the same module connector. Then it >would be up to the user to decide what type of RAM they wanted, rather than >it being a fixed feature of the board. > I was thinking of 3D video accelerators where you need a fair amount of RAM for the Z Buffer. >>2. Ethernet Interface. >>A simple 10/100 Base T connector with isolation transformer >>can't be too hard to implement. >> >> > >I'd like to see something like a CS8900. > The CS8900 is very popular for embedded designs. At CSIRO where I used to work, they decided to go with a Power QUICC (8560 ?) to provide all the micro peripherals for their FPGA board. The idea was they could be more cheaply implemented in dedicated silicon than on an FPGA, but it sort of defeats the purpose of experimenting with FPGAs. Looking around at combined processor and FPGA boards they work out fairly pricey. Most of the boards I have seen have had pretty small FPGAs on them. >I'm not sure about this one. PCI is tricky to interface to. Everything you >might want a PCI slot for is also already on the motherboard. Most of the >PCI slots in my PC sit empty. I'd prefer to see some sort of expansion >header(s) with some standardized signals (address / data) to allow custom >hardware development. > Yeah I guess. I was thinking that you did not want to put too much dedicated hardware on the board such at video encoders etc, because it made the board so expensive. By adding a PCI slot you could use a cheap video card or even a Bt848 based video capture card. Drivers are readily available for linux. Most of the low price FPGA board vendors probably don't want to standardise on a common bus. 1. Because they want to lock customers into their range of peripherals 2. They probably couldn't agree on a standard anyway :-) >A couple of other options I'd like to see are: >1) a battery backed up real time clock / calandar. A computer isn't a >computer without a RTC. >2) an IDE hard drive connector or two. But please NO floppy connector. >3) buffered audio output to drive a pair of PC speakers. But please no >complicated DAC/ADC chips. It's easy enough to build a delta-sigma DAC in >the FPGA, and it uses fewer IOs as well. > >Rob > There are a few things I'd like the ADC/DAC for. 1. Video, so I can play with some skeleton and clustering algorithms that have been in the back of my mind. 2. Audio, for sound processing 3. RF, for Direct Digital Synthesis. This has to be high resolution, accurate and fast. RF & Video, may require something a bit more sophistocated than an R-2R network on an I/O port or delta-sigma DAC. John. -- http://members.optushome.com.au/jekent [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To post a message, send it to: To unsubscribe, send a blank message to: Yahoo! Groups Links -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.298 / Virus Database: 265.6.5 - Release Date: 12/26/2004 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.298 / Virus Database: 265.6.5 - Release Date: 12/26/2004 |
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Re: What I want in an FPGA board - Alex Gibson - Jan 1 4:24:00 2005
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John Kent wrote: >With the advent of the XC3S1000, it prompted me to wonder >what I really wanted in an FPGA board. >I'm getting tired of playing with 8 bit micro clones with PS2, VGA >and RS232 interfaces. Been there ... done that. > >The XC3S1000 hopefully gives more scope to play with more >serious hardware designs. > >Apart from the usual interfaces listed above, >I thought the following features would be nice: > >1. 32 Bit wide RAM >The Spartan 3 Starter board has this. >Static RAM is faster and easier to use, but DRAM is larger >To run a 32 bit CPU design such as microblaze with uCLinux >and the like, I think you need DRAM. DRAM is also nice >to implement some serious graphics accelerators. how about a ddr slot ? , seem a few boards using so-dimms >2. Ethernet Interface. >A simple 10/100 Base T connector with isolation transformer >can't be too hard to implement. > >3. Compact Flash interface. >Some boards have this already, but many do not. cf or secure digital >4. Video Codec. >It would be nice to have video in as well as video out. >I'm told that cameras with digital interfaces are becoming >more prevelant (I'm thinking of cheap mobile phone camera >inserts rather than full blown commercial digital video cameras), >although I have not been able to find any on the web. >5. PCI Bus slot. >For softcore processors it would be nice to be able >to use existing PC hardware. There are some basic PCI >controllers around, alough it would be good to develop >something a bit better. The hardest thing to find on new motherboards is going to be a parallel port. A reliable usb jtag solution is going to be a necessity. Programmable oscillator(spi) or via usb. So don't have to use the DCMs for this. Alex -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.298 / Virus Database: 265.6.7 - Release Date: 30/12/2004 |
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Re: What I want in an FPGA board - Kolja Sulimma - Jan 1 7:20:00 2005
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Alex Gibson wrote: >The hardest thing to find on new motherboards is going to be a parallel >port. > >A reliable usb jtag solution is going to be a necessity. You can get a parallel port for USB for something like 15$ so I would not spend too much effort on that issue. Kolja Sulimma |
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Re: What I want in an FPGA board - Jeff Brower - Jan 4 12:34:00 2005
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Kolja- > >You've obviously never tried to use one then. > > > >With the couple I've tried they only work with printers. > >More of a usb printer port. > > > >Take a look at the threads on this in news:comp.arch.embedded > > > > > I never used them, but they should work with all software that uses > parallel port windows drivers instead of trying to acces the IO ports > directly. > For some stupid reason these are not many. Exactly the point: the reason is not stupid. Support is weak because most software out there that expects to hit LPT1 with standard I/O bus access (i.e. ISA bus). Why? Because Microsoft has continued to support that with Win2K and WinXP and Linux does as well. Only if software needs 2x LPTs at once is it forced to use a PCI (or USB) driver. > But everything that can use a parallel port PCI card should also be able > to use a parallel port usb device. So "Everything" as you mention is actually very little. -Jeff |
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Re: Re: What I want in an FPGA board - woodelf - Jan 8 13:35:00 2005
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Peter C. Wallace wrote: >For just download I would agree, but for other JTAG tasks (flash programming >for example) that would be _painfully_ slow... But how often do you flash stuff? I have a modem and downloading FPGA software is painfully slow since the servers are so wimpy. I am downloading some CPLD software from xilinx and only have 24 hours to go at 1.5k/sec What I want is a nice CPLD programer instead. Ben. |
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Re: Re: What I want in an FPGA board - Jacob Nelson - Jan 8 21:39:00 2005
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On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > I'm willing to make low cost USB/JTAG hardware (GPLed) if someone else will > handle the software side. I might be able to help with software. I'm *very* interested in seeing a GPLed USB JTAG interface happen, especially if it works with OS X and Linux. We could perhaps add interconnect test functionality, which I think would interest people. It'd be very useful for testing cheap multi-IC boards. jake |
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Re: Re: What I want in an FPGA board - Jacob Nelson - Jan 9 17:31:00 2005
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Excellent. I'll help if I can, especially with OS X. The last JTAG tool I worked on was Xilinx's XSVF player running on an odd little 36-bit embedded processor.... :-) jake On Sun, 9 Jan 2005, Eric Smith wrote: > Peter wrote: > > OK, I'm willing to make a small (25) run of hardware if there is some > > chance that someone else will do the support software... > > For an Ethernet JTAG interface, I'd be willing to write and test the > firmware, and the host software for Linux. I use Fedora Core 3, but > anything I write should work on other Linux distributions, BSD variants, > other Unixes such as Solaris, and probably even Windows. I don't test > on any of those, but if there are problems I'm happy to accept patches > and integrate with my code. > > I suggested the use of the Freescale MC9S12NE64 microcontroller for > the Ethernet. I've never used this before and am not particularly > wedded to it, though the pricing looks attractive. I have written > 68HC11 firmware in the past, so it shouldn't take much to learn to use > the 12. > > On the other hand, as a software developer I'd probably be happier > using an ARM based part such as the Atmel AT91RM9200 (integrated MAC) > or Micrel KS8685 (integrated MAC & PHY). But if you're willing to build > the hardware, you get to choose. > > Eric > > To post a message, send it to: > To unsubscribe, send a blank message to: > Yahoo! Groups Links |
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Re: Re: What I want in an FPGA board - Peter C. Wallace - Jan 10 11:02:00 2005
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On Sun, 9 Jan 2005, Eric Smith wrote:
> Peter wrote: > > OK, I'm willing to make a small (25) run of hardware if there is some > > chance that someone else will do the support software... > > For an Ethernet JTAG interface, I'd be willing to write and test the > firmware, and the host software for Linux. I use Fedora Core 3, but > anything I write should work on other Linux distributions, BSD variants, > other Unixes such as Solaris, and probably even Windows. I don't test > on any of those, but if there are problems I'm happy to accept patches > and integrate with my code. > > I suggested the use of the Freescale MC9S12NE64 microcontroller for > the Ethernet. I've never used this before and am not particularly > wedded to it, though the pricing looks attractive. I have written > 68HC11 firmware in the past, so it shouldn't take much to learn to use > the 12. > > On the other hand, as a software developer I'd probably be happier > using an ARM based part such as the Atmel AT91RM9200 (integrated MAC) > or Micrel KS8685 (integrated MAC & PHY). But if you're willing to build > the hardware, you get to choose. > > Eric The MC9S12NE64 would probably be the cheapest way that includes 100BT Ethernet but I suspect its performance would be rather disapointing. The 8695 is around $13 IICRC but requires external SDRAM and FLASH ROM. I think that it would be a better choice if performance is an issue - and as you say, it should make software development easier. If we use the 8695, how big a ROM do you need? I would prefer a small ROM (512K max) so I dont need a TSOP chip. Minimum RAM would probably a 64M bit 2Mx32 SDRAM chip. Peter Wallace |
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Re: Re: What I want in an FPGA board - Joshua Boyd - Jan 10 14:56:00 2005
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On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 09:33:02AM -0800, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > OK, I'm willing to make a small (25) run of hardware if there is some chance > that someone else will do the support software... What is your sale price on beta units? -- Joshua D. Boyd http://www.jdboyd.net/ http://www.joshuaboyd.org/ |
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Re: Re: What I want in an FPGA board - Eric Smith - Jan 11 18:04:00 2005
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Kolja wrote about the hypothetical Ethernet-JTAG interface: > I strongly suggest to do it in Java implementing the official Java JTAG > API. > http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/ThirdParty/BoundaryScan/ I just looked it over. Ugh! It does everything in terms of low-level bit twiddling controlled on the host side, which is exactly what you DON'T want for a high-performance JTAG interface. The primitives are things like GetTDO(), SetTRST(), SetTMS(), SetTDI(), and PulseTCK(). About as flexible as you could possibly want, but truly horrible for efficiency. Sigh. |
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