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Need for a new FPGA prototype board
by Unknown on Feb 13, 2004 |
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Hi all,
I am working on a IEEE1394 LLC opencore project and I am going to need
an FPGA board to be able to test it. AFAIK there are no off-the-shelf
boards with a 1394 PHY, so it seems that I will have to roll my own. My
plan is a simple PCI board based on a Spartan IIE or perhaps Spartan-3
device and a 1394a(b) PHY, perhaps with some audio I/O. I am debating
whether to have a separate PCI controller or to use the opencore one and
put it into the same FPGA. The reason I like external PCI is because it
allows me to have FPGA fully software reloadable. Partial configuration
sounds neat but from what people say it doesn't seem to be very usable
with current Xilinx tools... Another feature I am planning is the
ability to use the board standalone.
I would like to know if such a board would be of interest to others.
However, I am afraid that if I try to satisfy everyone's wishes I will
have to add all kinds of peripherals and memories, which will make the
project much bigger and more expensive.
--
Mikhail mikem at opencores.com>
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Need for a new FPGA prototype board
by Unknown on Feb 14, 2004 |
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On Friday 13 February 2004 20:06, Mikhail Matusov wrote:
Hi all,
This one has a DSP and a link layer chip in addition to the phy, so it
might not be usable for your application:
http://www.traquair.com/catalog/ultracompact.products.html
I am working on a IEEE1394 LLC opencore project and I am going to need an FPGA board to be able to test it. AFAIK there are no off-the-shelf boards with a 1394 PHY, so it seems that I will have to roll my own.
My plan is a simple PCI board based on a Spartan IIE or
perhaps Spartan-3 device and a 1394a(b) PHY, perhaps with some audio I/O. I am designing a Spartan 3 board myself but don't expect to see the actual chip very soon. Note that the Spartan 3 models in the page I indicated are not yet available.
I am debating whether to have a separate PCI controller or to
use the opencore one and put it into the same FPGA. The reason I like external PCI is because it allows me to have FPGA fully software reloadable. Partial configuration sounds neat but from what people say it doesn't seem to be very usable with current Xilinx tools... Another feature I am planning is the ability to use the board standalone. I would like to know if such a board would be of interest to others. However, I am afraid that if I try to satisfy everyone's wishes I will have to add all kinds of peripherals and memories, which will make the project much bigger and more expensive. If you are not aiming for volume production, then you might want to think of doing an adapter board with the 1394 phy and connecting that to an existing FPGA kit. Even if you have to use a short flat cable, the signals between the board won't have to high a frequency. -- Jecel |
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Need for a new FPGA prototype board
by Unknown on Feb 14, 2004 |
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Jecel Assumpcao Jr" jecel at merlintec.com>
To: "Discussion list about free open source IP cores" cores at opencores.org>
This one has a DSP and a link layer chip in addition to the phy, so it
might not be usable for your application:
http://www.traquair.com/catalog/ultracompact.products.html
Yes, I am aware of this product. It is not what I need, mainly because it won't have a direct path from FPGA to PHY and because it is not a PCI board....
I am designing a Spartan 3 board myself but don't expect to see the
actual chip very soon. Note that the Spartan 3 models in the page I indicated are not yet available. I talked to Avnet a couple of days ago about the situation with Spartan-3 availability. I was told that two models (50K and 400K IIRC) are available now, but the lead time is long.
If you are not aiming for volume production, then you might want to
think of doing an adapter board with the 1394 phy and connecting that to an existing FPGA kit. Even if you have to use a short flat cable, the signals between the board won't have to high a frequency. I've been thinking of this approach too. The thing is that if I am to design and manufacture a board it doesn't matter much in terms of cost whether it will be a little PHY board or a whole PCI board. Besides, I haven't seen really cheap PCI FPGA evaluation boards... If someone could point me to one... /Mikhail |
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