Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
Honored ContributorFPGAs
I'm trying to learn FPGAs any takers??
Forum Discussion
9 Replies
Altera_Forumwhat are you trying to learn - and what problems are you having?
- Altera_Forum
I want to save about 40000 bits out of a bit stream over about 1 second of time (coming out of a GPS module), but I don't know how. I would try to use a serial memory chip, but am unfamiliar with microcontroller to memory chip interfacing. I guess I was sort of thinking that an FPGA could act as a memory chip???
If I configure an FPGA to have like 40000 to 50000 OR gates, and individually signal each individual or gate such that it acts like a memory bit location????? I really don't understand FPGAs or the development environments or anything like that. I'm interested in doing this from a 'low end' standpoint. - Altera_Forum
There are a lot of FPGAs.
Some have a plenty of internal memory. Of course you can use internal logic cells as registers for memory but this is not the best use. You should use internal dedicated memory blocks. - Altera_Forum
I'm trying to use an Arduino board, and want to sample the GPS Module bitstream (with a baud of 4800 bits per second) at an interval of like 20us per sample.
I wonder how much I'm going to outlay in trying to configure an FPGA such that it will receive all 40000 to 50000 samples from the Arduino/GPS setup. Does a person need an IDE to work with FPGAs ??? How much do FPGAs cost, how much does an IDE cost????? - Altera_Forum
The IDE is called Quartus II and is free. See www.altera.com
The FPGAs are kind of expensive 5 to 30 dollars for the application that you talked about. They are programmed in Verilog or VHDL. Use google to find out more. - Altera_Forum--- Quote Start --- The IDE is called Quartus II and is free. See www.altera.com (http://www.altera.com) The FPGAs are kind of expensive 5 to 30 dollars for the application that you talked about. They are programmed in Verilog or VHDL. Use google to find out more. --- Quote End --- The free version only supports the low end devices, which will probably suit this application. You can get starter development boards for a few hundred dollars. Low end altera parts may be individually $5-50, but then you have to cost in all the extra parts and cost of developing your own board.
- Altera_Forum
Somewhere, I thoght I read that the Cyclone ll development board would be good. Is that variation becoming sort of obsolete, or is it still seeing a considerable amount of use??
I may try to buy a Cyclone lll board in like 6 weeks if that doesn't cost a whole bunch more. Any suggestions would be helpful. - Altera_Forum
I only started working with FPGAs about a year and I am still fairly low end. But I have found the Cyclone II a very useful board for implementing my designs, I would definitely recommend it.
- Altera_Forum
You can use a developement board to do what you want, its a comparatively easy task. The Cyclone II can have a NIOS processor in it, but you could do what you want in logic, and there is enough memory in the Cyclone II. Also there are a number of boards with memory attached that you can buy, search for Cyclone II dev boards. They are not too expensive. The Quartus software has quite a steep learning curve but seems to be pretty good. And its free!
