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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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    Thank you for the replies, Gary and jbattles. Kindly answer a few more questions.

    What kind of real world projects are there that can be implemented on FPGA that can't be done on an ARM board (like the TIVA C series launchpad)?
    I understand that in fpga, you could basically design your own cpu but I want to know how that could could be useful?
    Basically, what is the motivation behind spending so much time on learning fpga?

    Also to get started with the Nexys4 i need to know VHDL (I know a little bit of it) but what more do i need to learn to use the Zedboard?

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  • 0

    Thank you for the replies, Gary and jbattles. Kindly answer a few more questions.

    What kind of real world projects are there that can be implemented on FPGA that can't be done on an ARM board (like the TIVA C series launchpad)?
    I understand that in fpga, you could basically design your own cpu but I want to know how that could could be useful?
    Basically, what is the motivation behind spending so much time on learning fpga?

    Also to get started with the Nexys4 i need to know VHDL (I know a little bit of it) but what more do i need to learn to use the Zedboard?

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  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    The main power of an FPGA comes from it's flexibility.  You can completely control and create any kind of interfaces you need within the electrical signal limits of the I/O pins.  The FPGA can also process data in the hardware instead of having the software do it all which allows for precise timing control.  Most uCs (microcontrollers) have limits on the speed and number of interface buses.  They usually also limit which peripheral can be mapped to which I/O pins.  The FPGA really shines when it comes to high speed non-standard interfaces.  I find FPGA's usually necessary for interfacing to ADC chips when the speed goes above 100 Ksps or if the ADC has a weird interface.  So FPGA's are great for DAQ systems.  They also let you do things like time the data with a GPS PPS signal.  The other place they work well is if you want more than 2-3 of a particular interface.  You can usually implement as many interfaces as you have pins for.  Need 50 serial ports, an FPGA with 100 i/o pins can likely do it.  FPGA's also give you much better control of signal timing, especially if you are running a general purpose OS like Linux or Android.  In the FPGA, you can control pin timing to a system clock speed.  On a uC system you're lucky if you can get it down to 100 us using s/w to control a GPIO (known as bit banging)