Question on Xilinx VirtexProII PCMCIA support (FPGA boards)... please

I posted here before and got excellent responses, could you knowledgeable 
people also answer a simple questuion below?  If you reply by email, REMOVE 
"SPAMNOMORE" in capital letters repeated in my address twice (edit address 
manually)!!


We need to make sure Xilinx VirtexProII FPGA boards have a PCMCIA interface 
(hardware) and software support, and whether inteface is a regular one 
usable with standard IEEE802.11 cards (WIRELESS LAN modules).  The two 
boards (need info for BOTH!!) are:
ML 300 and ML310
One is just a board another is a complete development kit, I am not sure 
yet.

I did contact Xilinx first, but here's what happened:
At first Xilinx engineers said PCMCIA is not supported, but then came back 
to me saying this:
ML300 board: the PCMCIA supported, whereas PCI is supported only with much 
more effort on our side.  ML310 board: The opposite (i.e. the PCI is 
supported, while the PCMCIA is not fully supported.)
Thus we're completely confused and need to double check these answers, 
before comitting time/money.  I CAN"T CONTACT THEM ANYMORE FOR THE SAME 
QUESTION AS MY XILINX PERSONAL ID HAS ALREADY BEEN USED FOR THE SAME 
QUESTION, I'd appreciate if you help.

> We need to make sure Xilinx VirtexProII FPGA boards have a PCMCIA interface 
> (hardware) and software support, and whether inteface is a regular one 
> usable with standard IEEE802.11 cards (WIRELESS LAN modules).  The two 

Do you mean PCMCIA or Cardbus? All modern 802.11b cards are Cardbus,
which is essentially a removable flavor of PCI (yes, yes, I know it's
not that simple).

I am not sure, could you tell us whether it indeed supports Cardbuss flavor 
of PCMCIA, "regular" PCMCIA only, or PCI slots only?
On both hardware (available ports) and software (BIOS/firmware, etc.) 
support.

Xilinx documentation is feedingt me with conflicting answers - sometimes it 
makes impression PCI is fully supported but PCMCIA not, then the opposite 
PCMCIA is full support and PCI requires effort on "or side"?

The GOAL IS TO GO BUY A REGULAR/CHEAP IEEE802.11 PCMCIA CARD, PLUG AND ABLE 
TO TALK TO OTHER BOARDS WITHOUT GARGANTUAN EFFORT ON OUR SIDE (IEEE802.11 as 
you all know is WirelessLAN standard); the OperatingSystem for this project 
is no problem, but our problem is these two boards themseves if they can 
worjk with wireless LAN preferrably by using PCMCIA cards from a store. 

Mark Levitski wrote:

> I am not sure, could you tell us whether it indeed supports Cardbuss flavor 
> of PCMCIA, "regular" PCMCIA only, or PCI slots only?
> On both hardware (available ports) and software (BIOS/firmware, etc.) 
> support.
> 
> Xilinx documentation is feedingt me with conflicting answers - sometimes it 
> makes impression PCI is fully supported but PCMCIA not, then the opposite 
> PCMCIA is full support and PCI requires effort on "or side"?
> 
> The GOAL IS TO GO BUY A REGULAR/CHEAP IEEE802.11 PCMCIA CARD, PLUG AND ABLE 
> TO TALK TO OTHER BOARDS WITHOUT GARGANTUAN EFFORT ON OUR SIDE (IEEE802.11 as 
> you all know is WirelessLAN standard); the OperatingSystem for this project 
> is no problem, but our problem is these two boards themseves if they can 
> worjk with wireless LAN preferrably by using PCMCIA cards from a store. 
> 
> 
So, if your main point of concern is to use of-the-shelf wlan components, why 
not use USB? That would even give yout the choice to use either wlan or 
bluetooth, provided your OS supports that. USB needs much fewer I/O-Lines and IP 
cores can be found e.g. at Xilinx or at opencores.org. Or you can use one of the 
many USB interface chips like those from Cypress. You would need an extra IC 
beside the FPGA anyway, at least for the USB PHY.