3 ms·

> Contact Sales > Request Sample > Please login to download the document. I mean, yeah. My argument isn't that anything is impossible. My argument is that al

> Contact Sales > Request Sample > Please login to download the document. I mean, yeah. My argument isn't that anything is impossible. My argument is that all of this is harder than it needs to be and this is not countering me!

15155 10mo ago
This is your job, and it really shouldn't feel difficult. This is really not tedious: the minimum board design for these chips literally consists of just power, JTAG pins, and a clock (if the internal oscillator isn't good enough.) The Gowin FPGAs are available (at a massive premium) from Mouser, just like whatever MCU you are already using. Many are available for <$1-2 in China. Efinix are available from DigiKey, with some SKUs under <$10. All of the Gowin documentation is available on their site with a free, approval-less email login and no NDA, or via Google directly (PDFs, just like Xilinx, even numbered similarly.)
- mschuster91 10mo ago
  > All of the Gowin documentation is available on their site with a free, approval-less email login The problem is trust. I'm hesitant to hand out my e-mail anywhere because far too often I have been hounded by salespeople as a result, not to mention data breaches or bombardment of newsletters.
  - 15155 10mo ago
    So just use Google to obtain the documentation? Or a fake email? The PDFs are pretty easily obtainable by title: https://www.google.com/search?q=gowin+user+guide+filetype%3Apdf https://www.google.com/search?q=gowin+user+guide+filetype%3A... https://www.google.com/search?q=gowin+primitives+filetype%3Apdf https://www.google.com/search?q=gowin+primitives+filetype%3A... https://www.google.com/search?q=gowin+gw1n+filetype%3Apdf https://www.google.com/search?q=gowin+gw1n+filetype%3Apdf
    - mschuster91 10mo ago
      If I really need something I'll go that route, yes. But for something that is just on a "cool, that might be interesting" it's too much effort.
      - exmadscientist 10mo ago
        Exactly! If I need it I will go do the thing and jump through the hoop. If I am exploring, hell no. And, next week, if that thing I was exploring turns out to be useful, congratulations, you just sold 100,000 chips.

15155 10mo ago

This is your job, and it really shouldn't feel difficult. This is really not tedious: the minimum board design for these chips literally consists of just power, JTAG pins, and a clock (if the internal oscillator isn't good enough.) The Gowin FPGAs are available (at a massive premium) from Mouser, just like whatever MCU you are already using. Many are available for <$1-2 in China. Efinix are available from DigiKey, with some SKUs under <$10. All of the Gowin documentation is available on their site with a free, approval-less email login and no NDA, or via Google directly (PDFs, just like Xilinx, even numbered similarly.)

mschuster91 10mo ago
> All of the Gowin documentation is available on their site with a free, approval-less email login The problem is trust. I'm hesitant to hand out my e-mail anywhere because far too often I have been hounded by salespeople as a result, not to mention data breaches or bombardment of newsletters.
- 15155 10mo ago
  So just use Google to obtain the documentation? Or a fake email? The PDFs are pretty easily obtainable by title: https://www.google.com/search?q=gowin+user+guide+filetype%3Apdf https://www.google.com/search?q=gowin+user+guide+filetype%3A... https://www.google.com/search?q=gowin+primitives+filetype%3Apdf https://www.google.com/search?q=gowin+primitives+filetype%3A... https://www.google.com/search?q=gowin+gw1n+filetype%3Apdf https://www.google.com/search?q=gowin+gw1n+filetype%3Apdf
  - mschuster91 10mo ago
    If I really need something I'll go that route, yes. But for something that is just on a "cool, that might be interesting" it's too much effort.
    - exmadscientist 10mo ago
      Exactly! If I need it I will go do the thing and jump through the hoop. If I am exploring, hell no. And, next week, if that thing I was exploring turns out to be useful, congratulations, you just sold 100,000 chips.