[chbot] Kickstart in FPGA course...

[Mark Atherton]

The idea of a short course to get people started should cover the basics.

Bear in mind that total documentation for modern, complex FPGAs run 
into the thousands of pages - the trick is to learn how to navigate 
or where to look to find how to navigate the data.

I went with Altera rather than Xilinx because of it's usage at Tait 
and the associated knowledge base - that is a big thing for me as it 
could help open them up as a client.

 From a pragmatic point of view don't forget to look at the number of 
leaded pins and pin pitch of the less complex parts. BGA while cute 
are difficult to manage on 2 layer PCBs.

 From a beginners viewpoint, a cheap CPLD is probably OK just to see 
what you can do with the technology.

... and so the Altera vs Xilinx battle raged.

-Mark

Actually, I do have an old Xilinx board kicking around has never been 
powered up and I am secretly hoping that Altera isn't chosen then 
someone else gets to talk about something I know little about...



At 05:38 p.m. 15/02/2011, Mike Field wrote:
>Hi Charles,
>
>It doesn't matter which board, as long as we all use the same tool stack.
>
>If anybody wants to get a bespoke board because it has just the features
>you want and the tools you want then you won't be able to leverage of
>off the shared experience and resources of the group when it comes to
>getting your hardware and tools working. You will most probably learn a
>lot more doing it though!
>
>That is why I am most happy if people are using any  Digilent board that
>works with Webpack. The options are:
>
>- Basys2-100k board - AU$97
>No offchip Flash/Ram,
>equivalent to 100,000 logic gates
>some onchip RAM/ROM
>
>- Basys2-250k board - AU$110
>No offchip Flash/Ram
>equivalent to 250,000 logic gates,
>more onchip RAM/ROM
>
>- Nexys2-500k board - AU$172
>16MB Flash, 16MB RAM
>Equivalent to 500,000 logic gates
>even more onchip RAM/ROM
>
>- Nexys2-1200k board - AU$215
>16MB Flash, 16MB RAM
>equivalent to 1,200,000 logic gates
>even more of onchip RAM/ROM
>
>I do have one board to lend if price was a real pain point but they were
>keen to give it ago, but even the cheapest baord one will do a lot of
>stuff (eg drive a PS/2 mouse, Serial port , and VGA, and other stuff at
>the same time)
>
>Anything more than that is getting into really serious money. Likewise
>if everybody else says that Altiris is "da bomb". or is used in the
>local Uni, then I want in on that stuff and will get one for myself.
>
>Another option would be for a tiny CPLD, at AU$30, but if you then pay
>AU$49 for a JTAG cable, it is only $19 less than a board with power
>supply, switches, connectors, clocks and lights on it, and you don't
>have to play around with a breadboard and jumpers. In my book CPLD are
>not really a starter for 10 for a first introduction to programmable logic.
>
>I guess that my aim is to  help people with the "This stuff is looks to
>be really cool - why haven't I heard more about these? How do I start"
>sort of problems. Gosh darn it is hard to get started by yourself.
>
>STOP READING NOW UNLESS YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO :-)
>
>Here is my experience:
>"Hey, I would love to play with one of those, I can almost afford to get
>one!" Then the problems start...
>
>- WTF is JTAG?
>- Do I need a JTAG programmer?
>- Which programmer for what board?
>- Will this work with that no-cost software?
>- This board has extra RAM, this one has a DIMM socket, this has none!
>What do I want?
>
>Oh, bugger it I'll take a punt on Board X. It's the best I can get in my
>budget. "Holly heck! Check out that postage!" I'll have to wait for my
>pocket money (being a married man and all...)
>
>< Contact distributor, ask a few questions, wait a week or two for the
>board to arrive>
>
>I've got the board.
>- Oh, what drivers to I need?
>- Install drivers and board vendor's tools.
>- But where is the design tools? They are not in the box!
>- How do I get them?
><Download the tools from the site>
>- Bugger - didn't work with windows 7 (at that time).
>- Install an XP virtual machine.
>- Bugger! I've downloaded the wrong version - I wanted the free one!
><Download another bunch of files>
>
>Phew! Now have toolkit Installed, but...
>- What's all this licensing crap about?
><Obtain license and work out how to apply it>
>
>Yay! ready to build something
>- Oh, what settings do I need for the FPGA type on my board?
>- What model/packaging/speed grade is it? Where are the parts datasheet?
>- How do I get the reference projects to compile and download?
>- Hey they compile and download but they don't work! What's up?
>- Where do I get an accurate constraints file? The net names one I have
>doesn't match the I/O connectors in the reference projects!
>
>Gosh, that was to hard, how about I just play with the lights and
>switches.. success!
>- How come  doesn't the system clock work?
>- Oh! It's on a different pin than the tool expects by default!
>Wow. A binary counter. That was bloody epic.
>
>And from then on it was lots of shagging around... but still a lot of
>hard questions!
>- What datasheet do I need for the memory?
>- How can I stuff some test data into flash?
>- Can I make it talk to my PC over USB?
>- Which pin is that USB-to-EPP bridge WRITE  signal on? It's not
>mentioned anywhere in the documentation!
>- Bugger! "Memutil" doesn't seem to work with this flash chip!
>- How do I use this using the C API on the PC!
>- All I want to do is write some data flash from my PC. How hard can it be!?
>...
>...
>
>
>
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