[clug] Seeking USB and FPGA books plus dev board

[Robert Edwards]

On 20/06/11 13:55, jm wrote:
> I'm replying to myself to provide a summary to date.
>
> I've currently leaning towards the "FPGA Protyping by X Examples: Xilinx
> Spartan-3 Version" where X is either Verilog or VHDL (see
> http://academic.csuohio.edu/chu_p/rtl/ )
>
> There's also these two Spartan-3E based boards which may match the book
> above. I've got to look in to this further before saying it works with
> the book,
>
> Basys2 FPGA Board USD 79.00 (Academic USD 59.00)
> http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,790&Prod=BASYS2
>
>
> Nexys2 FPGA Board USD 149.00 (Academic USD 99.00)
> http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,790&Prod=NEXYS2
>
>
> While I can't find the one Bob is talking about I did find this one,

Hi Jeff,

The board I have was bought from Avnet several years ago now. It is
labelled as the Xilinx SPARTAN-3E FPGA Starter Kit and was probably
made by Digilent (c 2006). It has heaps of cool stuff on it: 16 char
LCD display, RJ-45 for Ethernet, USB, VGA, RAM, Flash, Serial, PS/2,
knobs, buttons, LEDs and lots of connectors for external I/O. Cost
about $150 at the time.

Another low-cost board that can be used for SPARTAN 3E development
is the open source Open Workbench Logic Sniffer:
http://gadgetforge.gadgetfactory.net/gf/project/butterflylogic/
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/open-workbench-logic-sniffer-p-612.html
which costs US$50 (+postage). The USB on this board does not go to the
FPGA, but to a PIC chip. May or may not limit your options for whatever
it is you were wanting to do.

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.

>
> Spartan-6 LX9 Dev Board USD 89.00
> http://www.avnet.com/ ( no good link for direct linking )
> http://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/AES-S6MB-LX9.htm
>
> As to the USB stuff I'll take a look at all the links suggested as there
> doesn't seem to be a good book in existence. It may very much be a case
> of hands on learning. Grabbing an AVR or other microcontroller based
> board and starting with some existing code in a monkey-see-monkey-do
> learning.
>
> The ARM based boards with on-board FPGA at
> http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/arm-sbc.php look promising for when
> the 8-bit controllers don't provide enough grunt and a custom board
> isn't justified. They look to be a lot cheaper than a few years ago, but
> this could just be my imagination.
>
> Jeff.
>