Programming FPGA chip

You can't program the FPGA and put it on another board, as the configuration is volatile and will disappear when you turn the power off. If you want to design your own board, you'll have to add a configuration device such as an EPCS flash memory. Add also a JTAG interface, you'll need it.

For the language, you can directly integrate vhdl code in your FPGA design. For the C++ code you will need to add a CPU, such as the Nios. But you will need to recompile the source code, you can't directly use a dll.

You can't use matlab code directly. Depending on the algorithm, you could rewrite it either as vhdl or C/C++ code and add it to your design. Some tools such as DSP builder can help you convert a Simulink project to VHDL but its capabilities may be a bit limited, depending on what you want to do.

Thanks for your reply Daixiwen.

But I want to ask you Is your reply is applied on the DE-70 board from altera.

You can find it in this site :

http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?language=english&categoryno=39&no=226

Because I'm thinking about graduation project that contains the following topics :

1- a main computer which contains :

a-OFDM Transciever for data and video image written by vhdl.

b-Face detection & recognition written by c++ conatins classes.

c-Speaker Identification written by matlab.

d-Commands Recognition written by matlab.

e-Simple OS for controlling a camera and displaying the video on the touch LCD.

2-multiple cameras for sending video data using ofdm modulation.

so i need to integrate between all the codes using the matlab.

And you know it's not easy to convert between the languages.

By using the DE-70 board as a main computer for the previous topics. So I need to send the video data using OFDM So I need a fpga connected to the cameras because i want to use fft and ifft transform. So what should I do without using a board or kit for each camera?

I want to build a simple board not to buy maybe DE-70 boatrd for each camera?

i'm confused

please help me.

First I wouldn't advise to make a custom PCB for your project at this stage. Designing an FPGA board can take some time, and you're not even sure yet that it will solve your problem.

Then maybe some signal processing experts could give more advice on this, but in my opinion the algorithms that you plan to implement will require more CPU power than a soft core in an FPGA can provide. It doesn't look easy to implement directly in hardware either.

I would rather suggest to use more specialized hardware, such as a DSP or a faster CPU. You can have a look at Texas Instruments' DSP as an example. They provide tools to convert Matlab code and run it directly on the DSP.

You can keep the FPGA board to handle the OFDM transceiving, as you already have the VHDL code, or also use the DSP for that.

Another alternative is to keep the Matlab and C/C++ functions on a PC, and only use the FPGA board for the OFDM and video interfaces.

Thanks for your reply Daixiwen.

I want to ask you was your last reply about the DE-70 board or your talking about the fpgas in general?

So which dsp do you advice me to use because there are a lot of dsps in Texas Instrument?And which on is suitable for my project and has a professional Kit that has a touch screen and can be extendable?

And what about the DSP Development Kits that the altera provides are they suitable and can I add a touch screen module to them because I didn't find touch screen module to them If you know about one please tell me about?

I don't think that any soft CPU core on any FPGA would be really suitable for the job, but as I said I'm not a signal processing expert ;)

As for the Texas DSP I don't know them very that much. I just know that TI provide tools to use Matlab code on some of their their DSPs. You may find more information by Googling a bit I guess.

> You can't program the FPGA and put it on another board, as the configuration is

> volatile and will disappear when you turn the power off.

You can build a kind of header board for your PCB containing the FPGA and a battery, to carry a programmed FPGA which has no flash on chip or on board to a certain place, where programming is not possible (e.g. because of a "no laptop here"-rule in military environments) -it really works!