[chbot] Kickstart in FPGA course...

[hamster]

I haven't seen much traffic on the list, so I don't know if this is
appropriate for the list.

Is anybody interested in getting a kickstart in learning to use FPGAs?

I'm toying with the idea of getting four or five people together, putting
a bulk order for development boards, and then arranging somewhere for a
few
evenings to get the basics going. Given the flexibility and power I am
amazed
that these devices seem to be shunned as too hard too use.

I found that getting started was the hard bit - knowing what board to buy,
 getting the CAD software installed and licensed, getting the first
project running. 

A FPGA board costs under AU$100 for a basic "all-in-one" 100,000 gate
model (eg
http://www.blackboxconsulting.com.au/product-details/basys2-100k.html),
but
it's the shipping that costs if you order one at a time. If $ are tight,
you
could go halves with a mate for a board - a lot of time is spent on your
PC
designing... If anybody wasn't sure if they wanted to buy a board I could
lend them one. 

Larger/faster/feature-rich boards a not much more expensive, but you have
to
take care to ensure that your board is supported with the "free to use"
design tools. 

As for the evenings, I was thinking of putting together a few brief
show & tell  + workshops to do simple projects... an off the top of my
head
topic list would be
- What FPGAs are good at
- Getting the development software installed
- Getting the first project running
- Schematic entry and VHDL design
- An overview of the on-chip resources (clock generators, block RAM etc)
- Using a development board's resources
- Simulation and debugging
- Implementing FSMs
- Interfacing to other devices
- An overview of really advanced stuff (like calibrated sub-nanosecond
delay lines,  

It would just require to
- bring along your own laptop
- have a basic understanding of digital logic 
- have an basic understanding of binary numbers
- familiar with a programming language - VHDL is a bit like Cobol in it's
verbosity
- ready for a steep learning curve 
- A small fee towards room hire, course material (e.g. a few DVDs, a
little printing), and enough to upgrade my board. 
- It would be nice if every board was using the same toolset - (I
currently use Xilinx tools). 

Time line would be to start in 6 weeks, or maybe Easter to
allow for organisation and delivery of the dev kits. 

Anybody interested, or know anybody who would be? 

I wonder if I could get some buy-in from a Community College?... I guess
it is a bit more advanced than "An introduction to digital photography".

Mike