Barriers to designing with FPGAs?

I love the potential of FPGAs (and CPLDs and other variations on the theme) and have used them in a previous job.

I don't think the available development software is so much an issue. I can recall Quartus (and Max+Plus II) crashing a lot when I used them at university, but my recent experience has been OK. The software is often bulky and the lack of common terminology across different vendors can be confusing.

For me the barriers are cost and power. These days I can pick up a MCU dev board for ~25USD, or a Raspberry Pi for ~35USD. A decent FPGA dev board costs an order of magnitude more.

Also, it's typically not just the cost of the FPGA you need to worry about - you might want external ROM/RAM, regulators, etc.

In its current state, the FPGA ecosystem (including the development tools) is geared for rapid prototyping or research, or very high-end products. The one-off costs aren't appealing for hobbyists, and the volume costs are prohibitive for low-margin products.

Slightly off-topic: The PSoC is a fantastic concept, marrying a MCU with some FPGA-like capabilities. I'd love to use it in a commercial design, but unfortunately it is also hampered by its cost.

tekmeister wrote:

 

For me the barriers are cost and power. These days I can pick up a MCU dev board for ~25USD, or a Raspberry Pi for ~35USD. A decent FPGA dev board costs an order of magnitude more.

...

Slightly off-topic: The PSoC is a fantastic concept, marrying a MCU with some FPGA-like capabilities. I'd love to use it in a commercial design, but unfortunately it is also hampered by its cost.

While FPGA development boards from FPGA vendors are often multi-hundred dollars, there are plenty of independent boards under US$100, such as the LOGI-Bone and LOGI-Pi.

For lots of cheap FPGA development boards, take a look at Joel Williams’ list.

The cheapest FPGA boards I’d consider include the $38 Papilio One with Xilinx Spartan-3E 250K, the $39 Gameduino (or similar Olimex MOD-VGA) with Spartan-3A 200K, or the $69 Xula2-LX9  with Spartan-6 LX9.

I'm not sure why Spartan-6 LX9 boards cost so much more than 3E 250K or 3A 200K.  The FPGA chips now have the same prices.

Regarding PSoC pricing: PSoC 5LP is pretty expensive, but you can get PSoC 4 chips for a couple dollars.  OTOH, you won’t get much (if any) programmable logic in those devices.

I had half an inkling someone would reply with some cheap FPGA board proving me wrong :-)

Thanks for the links, the Papilio boards look interesting.

I had half an inkling someone would reply with some cheap FPGA board proving me wrong :-)

Thanks for the links, the Papilio boards look interesting.