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What's Stopping You Building Your Next Project with an FPGA? (Please, Don't Blame the Cost!)

rscasny

The community does a ton of projects with MCUs. If they do the job for you, that's great. But the element14 community is about learning, experimenting and roadtesting. In this spirit, I am proposing that you should try building your next project with an FPGA (SoC), if it suits the application, of course. What's stopping you? Oh, some members have voiced the cost issue. Granted, some FPGAs do cost a lot. But chip manufacturers are rolling out economical chipsets that most makers, pro-makers or experienced hobbyists can afford. (If you can't, then apply to a RoadTest and if you win you can get a dev board for FREE.) I think FPGA / SoCs will move into a more important place for electronic designers, especially for IoT applications. Perhaps it's time to experiement with one. What's stopping you?

 

Here's a link to a current roadtest:Digilent ARTY S7 Dev Board (Xilinx Spartan 7)   Apply today!

 

Randall Scasny

RoadTest Program Manager

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  • Greetings,

     

    While FPGAs can be big and frighting, there cousin devices, CPLDs are more often an easier and friendlier fit to people working on embedded projects.  I have designed a lot of products where the majority of the work is being done on the microcontroller and a small amount of work is done with a CPLD.  Some examples of these designs are high speed sampling systems and high speed (non-standard) communications, where the data is in small bursts.  In these instances the CPLD can take measurements and/or collect data, while the microcontroller is doing its normal processing.  An interrupt or polling can be used to determine when data is ready. The microcontroller and CPLD can be configured to exchange data using simple I2C, serial or parallel buses.

     

    Typically I find FPGA parts packaged in very high pin count packages with huge gate counts, while CPLDs come in smaller pin count packages with a much smaller gate count.

    Gene

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  • Greetings,

     

    While FPGAs can be big and frighting, there cousin devices, CPLDs are more often an easier and friendlier fit to people working on embedded projects.  I have designed a lot of products where the majority of the work is being done on the microcontroller and a small amount of work is done with a CPLD.  Some examples of these designs are high speed sampling systems and high speed (non-standard) communications, where the data is in small bursts.  In these instances the CPLD can take measurements and/or collect data, while the microcontroller is doing its normal processing.  An interrupt or polling can be used to determine when data is ready. The microcontroller and CPLD can be configured to exchange data using simple I2C, serial or parallel buses.

     

    Typically I find FPGA parts packaged in very high pin count packages with huge gate counts, while CPLDs come in smaller pin count packages with a much smaller gate count.

    Gene

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  • in reply to genebren

    The Xilinx XC9572XL is the go-to device for the hobbyist. Powerful enough to solve real problems (for which conventional logic gets too large) and fast enough at the same time (faster than most MCUs). It can handle 5V on its inputs, so its compatible to many peripherals. Its quite cheap and there are many breakout boards available. Xilinx ISE is free, and programmers are cheap.