BGA Socket Adapters? or 2 FPGAs connected?

Question

Hi guys,

I'm doing a university project. I trying to design a board and i'm running into the problem of limiting pins and logic element counts.

The university can only mount flat pack style stuff and can't do ball grid arrays.

The only cyclones that come close is the 240 pin 39K elements. But apparently only 128 usable IO.

I need more pins!!

So has anyone been down either of these paths?

1. Use a ballgrid socket adapter to allow mounting and easier install?

2. Have two FPGAs in the one datapath?

Anythoughs and recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

altera_forum · Answer

http://www.mill-max.com/products/newproducts_detail.cfm?pid=7

his is the only kind of "BGA socket" I've heard of.

The socket is itself BGA and the BGA device also needs to be soldered to a adapter. So, I don't think it will help you.

Using two FPGAs is possible, but you need to be careful about splitting your design because I/Os are slow.

altera_forum · Answer

AsValdr,

there are a lot of BGA sockets in the market, but that is not the big point.

Do you really need a selfmade design; is this a required part of your task ?

Why not working with a ready-to-use board ? (made by experienced PCB designers/electrically tested/ re-usable for other projects/...)

Regards,

Michael

altera_forum · Answer

--- Quote Start ---

I'm doing a university project. I trying to design a board and i'm running into the problem of limiting pins and logic element counts.

--- Quote End ---

What is your project supposed to implement? With that information, you can get recommendations on existing boards, or on board design.

Screaming Circuits and Advanced Assembly can load BGAs on boards, so its not something your university really needs to be able to do, ultimately it will come down to how much $ you are willing to spend (and your location).

Cheers,

Dave

altera_forum · Answer

Thanks guys,

What i'm making is a video over ethernet boards and need the following devices:

(gpio) 40 pins : Terasic D5M Camera (For TX board) or Terasic LTM Screen for the (RX Board).

~57 Pins: SDRAM 32bits wide. To copy the DE2-115 i would be using 2x64mb chips.

~47 Pins: Ethernet (use the SMSC LAN91C111)

_____________________________

Total of 144 Pins. (I'd likely need more fo tidbits here and there)

Thats a minumum, i would like more for a VGA chip, but i'll have to perhaps run that on the GPIO.

I was looking at using the EP3c240. Which is 240pin with apparently only 128 usable IO. I hope the programming pins are in those excess pins. Is there seriously 112 power, gnd and reserved pins?

_________________________________________

I'm in Australia in the case of talking about location

altera_forum · Answer

--- Quote Start ---

What i'm making is a video over ethernet boards and need the following devices:

(gpio) 40 pins : Terasic D5M Camera (For TX board) or Terasic LTM Screen for the (RX Board).

~57 Pins: SDRAM 32bits wide. To copy the DE2-115 i would be using 2x64mb chips.

~47 Pins: Ethernet (use the SMSC LAN91C111)

--- Quote End ---

What is wrong with using a Terasic board for the FPGA too?

--- Quote Start ---

I'm in Australia in the case of talking about location

--- Quote End ---

Have you checked board assembly prices? You might be surprised how reasonable they are.

Cheers,

Dave

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BGA Socket Adapters? or 2 FPGAs connected?

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