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I am still not sold on the need for the FPGA and time/money is of the essence. I think an ARM micro running at 120MHz may be just fine. I will have to do some number crunching to find out.
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You have to be pragmatic. Select the right device for the job.
A microcontroller might be appropriate, or a microcontroller plus a support CPLD. For example, the new STM32 ARM micros have a 168MHz Cortex-M4 core, single-precision floating-point unit, an external bus interface, and have GPIOs at up to 84MHz. Go and request a free STM32F4-Discovery kit;
http://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/252419.jsp (The 'order free kit' link is on the right side under "Key Features").
I'm thinking of using this kit as the basis for a custom FPGA programmer and monitor (power on/off, voltages, currents, temperature, etc).
The USB interface of the micro will be used to program the FPGA, and then I can communicate via USB as well. I'll even try to make it look like a standard USB-Blaster so that SignalTap will work without having to write custom code.
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I will be a bit disappointed if the micro is ok as I am interested in learning technology that is new to me....
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Who says you have to stop learning? If you invest a little time on the side to learn new devices, you'll generally find that they are a solution to a future problem. If you don't take the time, then you're not going to have a decent breadth of knowledge ....
Cheers,
Dave
Honored Contributor
