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I have the same experience with FPGA development boards. I wanted to learn VHDL but gave up after 2 days with the "getting started" tutorial.

lmilcin 9y ago
The assumption here is that if you go for FPGA design you should already have at least some knowledge of embedded applications. FPGA development process is aimed squarely at corporations and rightly so. There is very few hobbyist projects that really require FPGA. Most of cases where I saw FPGA in use was not because it was needed but because the person didn't know how to achieve the result using other, more appropriate means.
- bjt2n3904 9y ago
  > FPGA development process is aimed squarely at corporations and rightly so. Sure, I wouldn't burn too much money advertising FPGAs to makers and hackers. But I wouldn't design my platform to exclude them. The accessibility and hackability of the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi helped create the IOT field (for better or for worse). The only reason the Raspberry Pi exists is because there was an insider at broadcom that was able to convince them to sell a smaller quantity of chips. > We were able to get our foot in the door to discuss buying chips in much smaller numbers than they usually sell (you’re right about millions of chips) because Eben works there and was able to get access to the right people, who were right on side once we had explained the goals of the charity. [1] Alienating and raising the barrier for smaller players hinders business development. What cool projects would exist now if FPGA vendors weren't so stuffy? [1] - https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/qa-with-our-hardware-team/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/qa-with-our-hardware-team/
  - lmilcin 9y ago
    I think FPGAs are not like general purpose MCUs. I think the comparision is like between CPU and GPU. GPUs are fantastic at solving some of the problems but you don't see people rushing to use GPUs in every computing application. Chances are, if you can implement it on MCU you will want to implement it on MCU because: 1) you need an MCU anyway either separate or FPGA based one 2) FPGA programming is sucha a hassle and not because of the tools but because it is genuinely hard 3) learning FPGA development well is a major effort as it requires different type of thinking. It is much more of a change that going from one programming language to another as entire concept of what is a program changes. 4) if you need more power, it is typically easier to step to more powerful MCU than to FPGA. As I understand, we need some number of very specialized people that can invest the time to learn hardware design on FPGA and the rest is better off spending that time thinking of fun MCU-based projects:)
    - user5994461 9y ago
      A GPU is much closer to a CPU and a MCU, than any of these is to a FPGA. VHDL is a different thing entirely from any programming language. It's not ranked as a programming language by the way. It might be easier to learn if you don't know any programming but know how to make integrated circuit boards.

lmilcin 9y ago

The assumption here is that if you go for FPGA design you should already have at least some knowledge of embedded applications. FPGA development process is aimed squarely at corporations and rightly so. There is very few hobbyist projects that really require FPGA. Most of cases where I saw FPGA in use was not because it was needed but because the person didn't know how to achieve the result using other, more appropriate means.

bjt2n3904 9y ago
> FPGA development process is aimed squarely at corporations and rightly so. Sure, I wouldn't burn too much money advertising FPGAs to makers and hackers. But I wouldn't design my platform to exclude them. The accessibility and hackability of the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi helped create the IOT field (for better or for worse). The only reason the Raspberry Pi exists is because there was an insider at broadcom that was able to convince them to sell a smaller quantity of chips. > We were able to get our foot in the door to discuss buying chips in much smaller numbers than they usually sell (you’re right about millions of chips) because Eben works there and was able to get access to the right people, who were right on side once we had explained the goals of the charity. [1] Alienating and raising the barrier for smaller players hinders business development. What cool projects would exist now if FPGA vendors weren't so stuffy? [1] - https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/qa-with-our-hardware-team/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/qa-with-our-hardware-team/
- lmilcin 9y ago
  I think FPGAs are not like general purpose MCUs. I think the comparision is like between CPU and GPU. GPUs are fantastic at solving some of the problems but you don't see people rushing to use GPUs in every computing application. Chances are, if you can implement it on MCU you will want to implement it on MCU because: 1) you need an MCU anyway either separate or FPGA based one 2) FPGA programming is sucha a hassle and not because of the tools but because it is genuinely hard 3) learning FPGA development well is a major effort as it requires different type of thinking. It is much more of a change that going from one programming language to another as entire concept of what is a program changes. 4) if you need more power, it is typically easier to step to more powerful MCU than to FPGA. As I understand, we need some number of very specialized people that can invest the time to learn hardware design on FPGA and the rest is better off spending that time thinking of fun MCU-based projects:)
  - user5994461 9y ago
    A GPU is much closer to a CPU and a MCU, than any of these is to a FPGA. VHDL is a different thing entirely from any programming language. It's not ranked as a programming language by the way. It might be easier to learn if you don't know any programming but know how to make integrated circuit boards.