Looking for an FPGA on a board (for fun...)

I have been looking at this Spartan3 , am a FPGA beginner also

http://www.nuhorizons.com/products/xilinx/spartan3/development-board.html

It seems like tou get a lot of value for the $70 more than the Xilinx
devel board. I guess this could run a real linux with 64MB Ram.
Anyone have experience with nuhorizon ??

Or this Xess

http://www.xess.com/prod035.php3

You get a lot less on this board compared to the nuhorizon ,but you
get 1 mill gates.

The Xess is not 5v tolerant , wonder if its the same with the
nuhorizon. I might think so , as it says it has 20 3.3v io lines


Any other suggestions in the $100.. $250 class ??

Carsten

Have you heard of anyone successfully running Linux on it? I'd be interested 
to know how that turned out.

I would get the board you just suggested, but it seems that interfacing 
external devices to it would be rather limited compared to the $99 Digilent 
board. Having on-board D-A/A-D converters is nice, but not essential, and I 
plan to hook up my own colour LCD anyway. The volatile/non-volatile memory 
again, is nice, but not essential for my needs.

Ideally, there'd be a board with the same connections as the Digilent 
Spartan-3 board, but with a more powerful FPGA, like the XC3S400 (as used on 
the Nuhorizons board that you suggested). The Xess board you named seems 
ideal if it has the what you want, but interfacing to other hardware would 
be more work than with the Digilent board.


C3

> It seems like tou get a lot of value for the $70 more than the Xilinx
> devel board. I guess this could run a real linux with 64MB Ram.
> Anyone have experience with nuhorizon ?? 

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 21:03:21 +1100, "C3" <_> wrote:

>Have you heard of anyone successfully running Linux on it? I'd be interested 
>to know how that turned out.
>
>I would get the board you just suggested, but it seems that interfacing 
>external devices to it would be rather limited compared to the $99 Digilent 
>board. Having on-board D-A/A-D converters is nice, but not essential, and I 
>plan to hook up my own colour LCD anyway. The volatile/non-volatile memory 
>again, is nice, but not essential for my needs.
>
>Ideally, there'd be a board with the same connections as the Digilent 
>Spartan-3 board, but with a more powerful FPGA, like the XC3S400 (as used on 
>the Nuhorizons board that you suggested). The Xess board you named seems 
>ideal if it has the what you want, but interfacing to other hardware would 
>be more work than with the Digilent board.
>
>
>C3

http://www.altium.com/livedesign/

This new Altrium (Protel) board seems like a Xilinx/Digilent but with
a 400K Gates Fpga.

Carsten

Carsten <xnews1@luna.kyed.com> wrote in message news:<7or4p017s4d90nheilcfp4r9n4uqha4fdu@4ax.com>...
> I have been looking at this Spartan3 , am a FPGA beginner also
> 
> http://www.nuhorizons.com/products/xilinx/spartan3/development-board.html
> 
> It seems like tou get a lot of value for the $70 more than the Xilinx
> devel board. I guess this could run a real linux with 64MB Ram.
> Anyone have experience with nuhorizon ??

Hmm, the digilent board is limited for system-on-a-chip work not so
much by the smaller FPGA, but by the limited memory, and limited
non-volatile memory.  I currently have a 32-bit soft core running from
block ram, and am rapidly running out of space.  On the other hand, I
have a hard disk interface, so if I add instruction/data memory
multiplexing, I can boot some additional code from disk to the
on-board SRAM.

This more expensive nuhorizons board does look better for SoC work - a
bit more block ram in the larger FPGA, but mostly a lot more on-board
memory and flash.  The problem though in my mind is the 20 io's - I
think it would take some multiplexing to squeeze in everything I need.
 I could probably turn my IDE disk interace into a typical intel-style
16 bit I/O bus within those 20 pins, but might end up needing a small
additional PLD (or whatever a 74ls138 is called in 3.3v logic) to do
adddress decode for various other peripherals, like video DAC.

Chris

>Hmm, the digilent board is limited for system-on-a-chip work not so
>much by the smaller FPGA, but by the limited memory, and limited
>non-volatile memory.  I currently have a 32-bit soft core running from
>block ram, and am rapidly running out of space.  On the other hand, I
>have a hard disk interface, so if I add instruction/data memory
>multiplexing, I can boot some additional code from disk to the
>on-board SRAM.
>
>This more expensive nuhorizons board does look better for SoC work - a
>bit more block ram in the larger FPGA, but mostly a lot more on-board
>memory and flash.  The problem though in my mind is the 20 io's - I
>think it would take some multiplexing to squeeze in everything I need.
> I could probably turn my IDE disk interace into a typical intel-style
>16 bit I/O bus within those 20 pins, but might end up needing a small
>additional PLD (or whatever a 74ls138 is called in 3.3v logic) to do
>adddress decode for various other peripherals, like video DAC.

Thanx for the ansver ....

I have been aware of the 20 pin limit also , but the again im a
beginner..

I have been looking at this one also
http://www.xess.com/prod035.php3

Seems like a tonzz of gates , but the i need to add ram/flash to get
something , line ethe nu horizon , and i am a noob (almost)  in making
electronics.

what do i choose ????

I would like to do some interfacing to some uC's and the Xess is NOT
5v tolerant but my prefered Atmel is also available in , 3v3.

This is tuff ....

My immediate choice is the NU , an if i run out of space , then just
buy the Xess



Carsten