Developing Arduino Shields with an FPGA

Looks cool..

For hobby use maybe .... but it's a lot of money for the full kit.

For pro use - no chance .... when I want to design in an FPGA I scope the system, decide on the FPGA (based on the task, production numbers, customer preferences etc) and then I design a board. (Might not do all these things myself if it's a big job).

There is no way I would use a little solder in type module when I can get free standing dev boards from the FPGA companies (if I want them) at anyhting from free ( as in beer) upwards.

I also think that the IndieGoGO site over-hypes the use of FPGAs, System Verilog is most certainly not much like C (get your head round begin/end, fork/join for starters) and programming an FPGA in SV is a very different task from writing  code for an Arduino or a micro in C. (I'm not saying that it can't be done for fun, just that it's a different kind of fun !).

I think most hobby types would do better to look at one of the little (and cheap) FPGA shields or the FPGA add on for the RPi.

MK

Michael Kellett wrote:

 

I also think that the IndieGoGO site over-hypes the use of FPGAs, System Verilog is most certainly not much like C (get your head round begin/end, fork/join for starters) and programming an FPGA in SV is a very different task from writing  code for an Arduino or a micro in C. (I'm not saying that it can't be done for fun, just that it's a different kind of fun !).

I agree with Michael's comments.  For learning about FPGAs, I'd most likely go with Papilio One 250K (US$38 for Xilinx Spartan-3E XC3S250E) and for more power Papilio Pro (US$85 for Xilinx Spartan-6 XC6SLX9).  I also just read about an interesting San Diego State University FPGA project called Ahtlatl (an Aztec spear-thrower) also based on Spartan-6 that looks similar to Papilio Pro but perhaps with more I/O pins.  It's used in an SDSU course, and it seems the course materials are or will be available "for a few dollars more".

Regarding Helix-4 hype, I strongly disagree with them that FPGA design is easy to learn and (especially) master.  Even though C and Verilog have similar syntax, the design tradeoffs with FPGAs and software are totally different, and you need to approach problems in different ways for good results.  Duane Benson gave an excellent talk at Design West 2013 called "FPGAs: I know nothing... yet" which illustrated the steep learning curve newbies face when contronted with current design languages and FPGA tools.

I don't know what I'd do with the Helix-4 module.  I'd have to design a PC board to mount it or buy their large development board.  I'd rather get something I can plug directly into a RasPi or BeagleBone, or connect via USB like Papilio.

Hi MK, It sounds like you have volume in your projects.

helix_4 is meant to appeal if you *don't* have much volume. When your volumes are <100pcs you don't get play from Distributors or Vendors or assembly houses.  If X and A won't give you free boards, and they won't give you hot volume pricing, how do you make it happen? We know we're not going to appeal for projects with >100pcs, but if you are doing 10 or 20 - a nice short run - then a $40~60 module covered in RAM that saves you 3 BGA placements and the yield issues... hoping that appeals to someone.

A lot of people are comparing us to Papillio, and that's a good thing- great product. We differentiated ourselves:

1) For the dev board we didn't make an accessory board standard of our own, or use IDE hdrs - we hooked into the Ardunio UNO shields because there are 300+, they are very good generally, lots of OSHW & code, and lots of vendors develop them.

2) We give you the option to make a 2 layer board and use the module. This can get you a NICE finished product, that is the right form factor and fits a standard case or one you've 3d printed. I pay $55 for 10pcs of a 2 layer board, so cheap that we think this is the way prototyping will go - fewer wires and kluge, more quick spin PCBs with modules.

3) The specs are different. We're a bit higher spec: 8x more dram,and its ddr2, 22kle vs 9kle, sram that runs @ 50mhz, the atsha204 crypto chip, similar io count. the papilio has more flash, and has an integrated programmer, but we didn't embedd a programmer because they are cheap enough, and we want our customers to end up on a bespoke 2 layer board, so they'd need to take the programmer dongle to that board eventually. We're considering bunding a programmer dongle - but need more feedback first.

Thanks for the time to look at the campaign and make comment. Your feedback is gold.