Nigel.Gunton@Nige... wrote: > On Sun, 26 Jun 2005, Alex Gibson wrote: >>rtstofer wrote: >> >>>I'm interested in the equivalence as well. My Z80 CP/M project >>>takes 2992 of the 6144 available LUTS in a XC2S300E Xilinx FPGA. > snip >>Was tempted to get one of thse boards but too many other things to do. >>We are finally getting one of the digilent v2pro boards(ordered friday) >>so have to get that up and running as well as helping test the new >>remote fpga labs which are going to be used next semester(Aug to Nov). >> >>Using Tony Birch boards, students access them remotely via a web browser >>and can upload their bitstreams and toggle io etc. View outputs (to leds >>and seven segment displays via webcam(jpeg, quicktime etc) >>Not as good as getting hands on time especially for debugging but not my >>decision. Does avoid hardware getting damaged / blown up. >> >> >>Alex > > snip > > Sounds like an excellent idea, but how do they toggle switches ;) via web page based interface or type in the decimal or hex value for the switch settings > > seriously though, I'd be interested in how it works out as we have similar > issues here. Currently we use the elderly altera excalibur boards (apex > 20ke200) and it is too easy for the students to switch the cpld that holds > the fpga loader into the jtag chain :( > > nigel g. Its been running already for a couple of years for use with a real time operating systems subject to use coldfire boards. Looking at adding audio output (eventually input as well) and a serial port connection . Serial will use ssh. Means we can use the boards with xilinx edk as well. Currently we have kits that students have to buy and assemble themselves. Used for a couple of subjects pic16f877 and cpld xl9572xc. Running into the problem that the uni stopped teaching soldering and circuit board design a few years back. Spent a lot of time telling people to fix their soldering. Hit the problem a number of senior staff believe its more important to teach management skills than soldering or printed circuit board design - so we have no pcb design subject/s. Additionally no one wants to teach that type of subject. Some of us tutors tried to get around that by having the Engineering society (me and others) teach low cost soldering courses. $15 for 3- 4 hours but stuff all students were prepared to pay for a soldering class. Not helped by the attitude from one department that engineers don't get their hands dirty and that its a technicans job to prototype , solder and build things. Alex

On Sun, 26 Jun 2005, Alex Gibson wrote: > rtstofer wrote: >> I'm interested in the equivalence as well. My Z80 CP/M project >> takes 2992 of the 6144 available LUTS in a XC2S300E Xilinx FPGA. snip > > Was tempted to get one of thse boards but too many other things to do. > We are finally getting one of the digilent v2pro boards(ordered friday) > so have to get that up and running as well as helping test the new > remote fpga labs which are going to be used next semester(Aug to Nov). > > Using Tony Birch boards, students access them remotely via a web browser > and can upload their bitstreams and toggle io etc. View outputs (to leds > and seven segment displays via webcam(jpeg, quicktime etc) > Not as good as getting hands on time especially for debugging but not my > decision. Does avoid hardware getting damaged / blown up. > Alex > snip Sounds like an excellent idea, but how do they toggle switches ;) seriously though, I'd be interested in how it works out as we have similar issues here. Currently we use the elderly altera excalibur boards (apex 20ke200) and it is too easy for the students to switch the cpld that holds the fpga loader into the jtag chain :( nigel g. -- Nigel Gunton Phone : +44/0 117 32 83167 /"\ Senior Lecturer, School of Electrical & Computer Engineering, \ / CEMS, University of the West of England, Bristol. X ASCII Ribbon Campaign against HTML email & microsoft attachments / \ This email has been independently scanned for viruses and any virus software has been removed using McAfee anti-virus software

I have had Quartus II on my machine for a while but I have never used it. Now it says my free license has expired and I have to go hoop jumping. Guess I'll pass... Xilinx has a better deal - it's free. Period. --- In fpga-cpu@fpga..., Alex Gibson <yahoo@a...> wrote: > rtstofer wrote: > > I'm interested in the equivalence as well. My Z80 CP/M project > > takes 2992 of the 6144 available LUTS in a XC2S300E Xilinx FPGA. > > The 'equivalent gate count' is 259,353 + 4704 for JTAG. I'm still > > not clear about the definition of 'equivalent gate count' as it is > > about 264k of the '300k' gate device, about 88%. On a LUT basis the > > project uses just 48% of the available LUTs. > > > > Anyway, statistics aside, I wonder if this will fit in the 5980 LEs > > available in the EP1C6Q240C8? There's one way to find out, I > > guess... > > > > > > I've got a EP1C6F256C6 in one of the cubic clyonium Altera demo thingies > here sitting on my desk. > > Suppose after exams are over this week , I could try a project in both > that and S3 kit. > > Easiest way to try to compare is build a project using the same files > for xilinx and altera. Synthesise in both webpack and quartus2 web edition. > > Tried that for a few things but usually to many differences to be able > to just simply compare. > > Was tempted to get one of thse boards but too many other things to do. > We are finally getting one of the digilent v2pro boards(ordered friday) > so have to get that up and running as well as helping test the new > remote fpga labs which are going to be used next semester(Aug to Nov). > > Using Tony Birch boards, students access them remotely via a web browser > and can upload their bitstreams and toggle io etc. View outputs (to leds > and seven segment displays via webcam(jpeg, quicktime etc) > Not as good as getting hands on time especially for debugging but not my > decision. Does avoid hardware getting damaged / blown up. > > Main work is getting some dsp boards up and running. > Few craddle pci boards and a lyrtech signalwave board. > http://www.cradle.com/products/sil_3400_family.shtml > http://www.lyrtech.com/DSP-development/dsp_fpga/signalwave.php > Alex

rtstofer wrote: > I'm interested in the equivalence as well. My Z80 CP/M project > takes 2992 of the 6144 available LUTS in a XC2S300E Xilinx FPGA. > The 'equivalent gate count' is 259,353 + 4704 for JTAG. I'm still > not clear about the definition of 'equivalent gate count' as it is > about 264k of the '300k' gate device, about 88%. On a LUT basis the > project uses just 48% of the available LUTs. > > Anyway, statistics aside, I wonder if this will fit in the 5980 LEs > available in the EP1C6Q240C8? There's one way to find out, I > guess... I've got a EP1C6F256C6 in one of the cubic clyonium Altera demo thingies here sitting on my desk. Suppose after exams are over this week , I could try a project in both that and S3 kit. Easiest way to try to compare is build a project using the same files for xilinx and altera. Synthesise in both webpack and quartus2 web edition. Tried that for a few things but usually to many differences to be able to just simply compare. Was tempted to get one of thse boards but too many other things to do. We are finally getting one of the digilent v2pro boards(ordered friday) so have to get that up and running as well as helping test the new remote fpga labs which are going to be used next semester(Aug to Nov). Using Tony Birch boards, students access them remotely via a web browser and can upload their bitstreams and toggle io etc. View outputs (to leds and seven segment displays via webcam(jpeg, quicktime etc) Not as good as getting hands on time especially for debugging but not my decision. Does avoid hardware getting damaged / blown up. Main work is getting some dsp boards up and running. Few craddle pci boards and a lyrtech signalwave board. http://www.cradle.com/products/sil_3400_family.shtml http://www.lyrtech.com/DSP-development/dsp_fpga/signalwave.php Alex

I'm interested in the equivalence as well. My Z80 CP/M project takes 2992 of the 6144 available LUTS in a XC2S300E Xilinx FPGA. The 'equivalent gate count' is 259,353 + 4704 for JTAG. I'm still not clear about the definition of 'equivalent gate count' as it is about 264k of the '300k' gate device, about 88%. On a LUT basis the project uses just 48% of the available LUTs. Anyway, statistics aside, I wonder if this will fit in the 5980 LEs available in the EP1C6Q240C8? There's one way to find out, I guess... --- In fpga-cpu@fpga..., Tony <tony@i...> wrote: > Not fully understanding the differences in how different > vendors label their chips, would this be big enough to > expirement with some sort of SoC stuff, using 'smaller' > CPU's like DLX, or Z80? > > No commercial goal, just 'personal' stuff... > > Message: 1 > > Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:15:21 +1000 > > From: Alex Gibson <yahoo@a...> > > Subject: Low cost Altera board > > > > Came across this one > > http://www.terasic.com/english/fpga_01.htm > > > > Designed for multimedia. EP1C6Q248C8 > > vga , tvout , audio out(line out) , ps2 , rs232 , usb programming > > cf card , config prom , 16 bit audio , 1MB flash + 8MB ram > > for US$149 > > > > > > Alex > >

Not fully understanding the differences in how different vendors label their chips, would this be big enough to expirement with some sort of SoC stuff, using 'smaller' CPU's like DLX, or Z80? No commercial goal, just 'personal' stuff... > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:15:21 +1000 > From: Alex Gibson <yahoo@yaho...> > Subject: Low cost Altera board > > Came across this one > http://www.terasic.com/english/fpga_01.htm > > Designed for multimedia. EP1C6Q248C8 > vga , tvout , audio out(line out) , ps2 , rs232 , usb programming > cf card , config prom , 16 bit audio , 1MB flash + 8MB ram > for US$149 > Alex >

>> >>Approx 100K - 150K gate I think , not 100% sure. >> >> >> > Is that Altera gates or Xilinx gates ? I think there is a factor of two > difference if Altera are to be beleived. > ie. 100K Altera gates = 200K Xilinx gates. Its sort of like MIPs I guess > ... Meaningless Indicator of Perforance. > In either case, it's not a particularly big device if you are correct. > Guess it keeps the cost down. > Best way to compare X and A is LUT count. Altera names them LE and Xilinx LC. However, don't take the value from the datasheet for the X count - they are to creative and count 'equivalent LCs'. Run ISE and than you get the correct LC (LUT) count of a paticular device. Also X's CLB and slice count is irritating. Martin

Hi Alex, Alex Gibson wrote: >John Kent wrote: >>I was wondering what size the Altera FPGA is in comparison to the Xilinx >>devices. >> >> > >Approx 100K - 150K gate I think , not 100% sure. > Is that Altera gates or Xilinx gates ? I think there is a factor of two difference if Altera are to be beleived. ie. 100K Altera gates = 200K Xilinx gates. Its sort of like MIPs I guess ... Meaningless Indicator of Perforance. In either case, it's not a particularly big device if you are correct. Guess it keeps the cost down. >>I have problems running the Altera Software as the license clashes with the >>Modelsim licence used for Xilinx Webpack - it uses the same environment >>variable. >> >> > >which one ? > >webpack was installed first then quartus then ise. >No idea if the order makes a difference or not. > I was using Altera Quartus II web edition 3.0 but I notice starting it up you have the choice of using the LM_LICENSE envirnoment variable or using a specific license file. I installed Quartus after Webpack ISE 6.3. I now run ISE Webpack 7.1 Modelsim was 5.7g or some such thing. >Think this is what Andre Le moth www.xgamestation.com >plans to do with the next xgs version , out sometime next year. >Have a fpga based gpu. > The xgamestation web site is pretty spiffy, but I'm wondering about using a PIC for archade games.... Seems to work, but an ARM7 or the new ST ARM9 reconfigurable microcontroller you mentioned a few days ago, sound like it would fit the bill a little better. I could not find any references to a future FPGA GPU, but maybe I did not look hard enough. John. -- http://members.optushome.com.au/jekent

John Kent wrote: > Hi Richard & Alex, > > Yes it does look like a nice board. > > I was wondering what size the Altera FPGA is in comparison to the Xilinx > devices. Approx 100K - 150K gate I think , not 100% sure. > I have problems running the Altera Software as the license clashes with the > Modelsim licence used for Xilinx Webpack - it uses the same environment > variable. which one ? webpack was installed first then quartus then ise. No idea if the order makes a difference or not. > Has any one had any experience running the Xilinx software and Altera > software together ? Yes. Have xilinx ise 7.1 sp 1 and webpack 6.3 sp 2 + modelsim xe , quartusII v5 web edition on both my desktop and laptop without problems. Running xp sp2 on desktop and xp tablet 2005 sp2 on laptop. Can run both ise and quartus at the same time, without problems as long as you have lots of ram. > > I'm still hanging out for a video and audio codec. > I'd love to implement a graphics effects generator that allows warping and > multiple video inputs in floating sprites :-) I've just been too lazy to > sit down and design > a video codec board. The FPGA board would also probably need a few more > frame > stores than you find on the average board. Think this is what Andre Le moth www.xgamestation.com plans to do with the next xgs version , out sometime next year. Have a fpga based gpu. > Even an audio codec would allow for some experimentation with speech filters > companders and LPC synthesis / speech recognition > > John..

----- Original Message ----- From: "John Kent" <jekent@jeke...> To: <fpga-cpu@fpga...> Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 10:06 AM Subject: Re: [fpga-cpu] Re: Low cost Altera board > Hi Richard & Alex, > > Yes it does look like a nice board. > > I was wondering what size the Altera FPGA is in comparison to the Xilinx > devices. > I have problems running the Altera Software as the license clashes with > the > Modelsim licence used for Xilinx Webpack - it uses the same environment > variable. > Has any one had any experience running the Xilinx software and Altera > software together ? > > I'm still hanging out for a video and audio codec. > I'd love to implement a graphics effects generator that allows warping and > multiple video inputs in floating sprites :-) I've just been too lazy to > sit down and design > a video codec board. The FPGA board would also probably need a few more > frame > stores than you find on the average board. > > Even an audio codec would allow for some experimentation with speech > filters > companders and LPC synthesis / speech recognition I've designed a very simple codec interface board for the Digilent Spartan 3 kit which uses the Si3000 speech codec. I haven't got round to making a PCB and trying it, though. Leon -- Leon Heller, G1HSM leon.heller@leon... http://webspace.webring.com/people/jl/leon_heller/ --- [This E-mail has been scanned for viruses but it is your responsibility to maintain up to date anti virus software on the device that you are currently using to read this email. ]