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Newbie. Please Help

Former Member

Hello guys, I am a new person on this forum and would like to ask a few questions.

First off, I am currently in my 6th semester in an Electrical Engineering course and I have studied programming using VHDL. However that course had a lot of theory and not a lot of practical implementation, even though we did study a lot of programming.

So I was wondering what are the differences between a board such as a Nexys4 and the Zedboard?

What are the practical applications of the two, as in what sort of projects can be built using these devices.

We used to program in a software by Mentor Graphics, the HDL Designer Series. These would then be implemented on a Spartan IIe board. The programs included things like implementing multiplexers, priority encoders, up/down counters.

Can such programs be implemented on the Zedboard too?
I think they can be implemented on the Nexys 4 but what about zedboard?

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    Both boards are capable of implementing HDL designed logic functions.  The primary difference is that the Zynq part (in Zedboards) has a microprocessor (Dual core ARM Cortex-A9) implemented permanently as hardware.  The advantage of the hard part is speed and size vs. implementing a microprocessor core in the FPGA part.  The CPU can run as an embedded controller with SPI, USB, serial, SDcard, Ethernet without ever having to write a line of HDL code as well.

    In the Artix you would have to implement the CPU and the peripherals manually and the CPU performance would be lower.  The Xilinx microblaze 32 bit CPU will run at about 100-150 MHz depending on feautures and how much other stuff you put into the FPGA. 

    The learning curve for the Zynq is substantial, especially if you plan to run an embedded Linux on it.  Free tools are available from Xilinx for both parts.  There's two separate design environments you can use to do the HDL programming: Vivado (the newer one) and ISE (the older one).  Both tools have substantial learning curves as well so plan on taking quite a bit of time to learn how to use these parts. 

    The new FPGA's are very capable and there is a lot of different subsystems to learn about.  It is a multi pass process where you will learn deeper and deeper as time goes on.  It really takes a few years to become a proficient FPGA designer to understand everything from the HDL to how to layout and power the part. 

    Digilent has some nice Spartan-6 boards and even some older S3 boards that may be a bit easier to learn on.

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    Both boards are capable of implementing HDL designed logic functions.  The primary difference is that the Zynq part (in Zedboards) has a microprocessor (Dual core ARM Cortex-A9) implemented permanently as hardware.  The advantage of the hard part is speed and size vs. implementing a microprocessor core in the FPGA part.  The CPU can run as an embedded controller with SPI, USB, serial, SDcard, Ethernet without ever having to write a line of HDL code as well.

    In the Artix you would have to implement the CPU and the peripherals manually and the CPU performance would be lower.  The Xilinx microblaze 32 bit CPU will run at about 100-150 MHz depending on feautures and how much other stuff you put into the FPGA. 

    The learning curve for the Zynq is substantial, especially if you plan to run an embedded Linux on it.  Free tools are available from Xilinx for both parts.  There's two separate design environments you can use to do the HDL programming: Vivado (the newer one) and ISE (the older one).  Both tools have substantial learning curves as well so plan on taking quite a bit of time to learn how to use these parts. 

    The new FPGA's are very capable and there is a lot of different subsystems to learn about.  It is a multi pass process where you will learn deeper and deeper as time goes on.  It really takes a few years to become a proficient FPGA designer to understand everything from the HDL to how to layout and power the part. 

    Digilent has some nice Spartan-6 boards and even some older S3 boards that may be a bit easier to learn on.

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