4 ms·
Whenever people ask this question, I'm the broken record with the same reply: start out with the cheapest kit possible, an Altera EP2C5TQ144 development board.
by TomVDB 8y ago
Whenever people ask this question, I'm the broken record with the same reply: start out with the cheapest kit possible, an Altera EP2C5TQ144 development board.
http://land-boards.com/blwiki/index.php?title=Cyclone_II_EP2C5_Mini_Dev_Board http://land-boards.com/blwiki/index.php?title=Cyclone_II_EP2...
They are old, and you need a slightly older version of the Altera Quartus software suite, but they are dirt cheap.
Go to eBay, search for EP2C5TQ144, and you can find development kits including programming cable starting at $3.50.
The FPGA is tiny, but it has quite a bit of RAM, a bunch of hardware multipliers, and a sufficient amount of logic gates to create your own 32-bit RISC processor if you feel like it. And because it is so tiny, full synthesis and place & route run will take a few minutes.
You may be tempted to go the open source route with a Lattice ICE40 FPGA. There are now tons of board out there with this FPGA, and being fully open source is great. But once you start debugging, you'll be without all the goodies that come with Altera, especially SignalTap (an on-chip synthesized logic analyzer.)
Chances are that you will never outgrow the EP2C5 FPGA because you'll lose interest and move on to something else. But if you outgrow it, all you've wasted was one latte at Starbucks.
- nraynaud 8y agoI'd advise people to start with a Cypress PSoC MCU, they have the taste of FPGA, but have a lot of useful stuff for various projects, and I bought 10 MCUs for $10.
- TomVDB 8y agoI just googled it and they seem to be MCUs with no programmable logic? What feature gives them a taste of an FPGA?
- snaky 8y agoCypress call it 'UDB'. https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/no-bitbanging-necessary-or-how-to-drive-a-vga-monitor-on-a-psoc-5lp-programmabl/ https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/no-bitbanging-necessa...
- TomVDB 8y agoThat's much more FPGA-like than I expected.
- bsder 8y agoYou have a very small number of blocks of analog and digital functions that can be connected together in various ways. Cypress are not open source, but the tools are better than average (FWIW). FPGA's are a pain because you get a gigantic quantum jump in complexity right away. For example--a system clock. Do you want a single one? Okay, now you have to deal with distributing that clock and dealing with termination and reflections. Do you have more than one? Okay, now you need to deal with synchronizers right out the chute. For most hacker types, the Cypress chips are a MUCH better match to what they need to do. Generally these digital tasks break down into something like "Catch a very tight margin digital signal, respond with ACK and wait signal, and signal the core that something needs serviced." (example: communicate with a GPIB device) or "Have a tight feedback loop that receives slow commands" (example: PWM for a motor with an encoder).
- TomVDB 8y agoThe learning curve of FPGAs is steep because it's a completely different way of thinking. And if you're thinking about a particular application, I agree that the Cypress chip might be the best solution in a bunch of cases. But the original question was which would be a good FPGA learning platform. I don't think the Cypress MCU are the best way to learn about FPGAs. Similarly, your example of a system clock is only relevant if you're thinking about designing your own boards. That's even more beyond the scope of the question.