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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!

     

    Normally I'd be quicker to chime in on a question like this, but very busy yesterday working on FPGA tools image

     

    I've written lots on this topic, so I'll link to earlier discussions.

     

    Barriers to designing with FPGAs?

    Some FPGA Beginner Questions

    Not-as-expensive FPGA Boards

     

    You will find that the barriers to designing FPGAs are still pretty much the same:

     

    1. Very steep learning curve for new users.  You have to commit to a lot of work to get that first LED blinking.

     

    2. "Logic!  Why don't they teach Logic in these schools?" is as true today as in 1950 when C.S. Lewis published these words.  Schools teach "coding" (and sometimes "programming"), but not logic.  The serial thinking needed for most programming languages and the parallel thinking for digital design are different animals IMO.

     

    3. My personal soapbox: Microcomputers have open instruction sets, so anyone can develop languages and compilers for them.  This has made them ubiquitous and cheap.  Except for a few recent exceptions, FPGAs have closed bitstreams which means you are stuck with the tools and languages provided by vendors, which IMO has severely limited the use of FPGAs.  If Intel had insisted that everyone program in PL/M using an Intel-provided compiler, microprocessors would be in the same boat.  JMO/YMMV

  • in reply to johnbeetem

    This 21st century yabber about teaching coding at schools thinking that it's new stuff.....

    I learned set theory as a 6 year old at primary school in the 1970's and later about DeMorgan's theorem and Karnaugh maps.

    We didn't have computers so we used simple items such as cane hoops, wooden blocks and punch cards.

    Then I started building stuff with 4000 series logic.

     

    Those were the days.

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  • in reply to johnbeetem

    This 21st century yabber about teaching coding at schools thinking that it's new stuff.....

    I learned set theory as a 6 year old at primary school in the 1970's and later about DeMorgan's theorem and Karnaugh maps.

    We didn't have computers so we used simple items such as cane hoops, wooden blocks and punch cards.

    Then I started building stuff with 4000 series logic.

     

    Those were the days.

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