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Altera_Forum
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8 years ago

University Looking to Update Old Hardware

I am the Electrical Engineering Lab supervisor at a University in Pennsylvania and we are looking to update our PLD collection, programming interface, software (well basically everything) related to PLDs and CPLDs. We have, many years ago before I took this job, used the EPM7160SCL84-10, EPM7032LC44-15 and the EP610DC-35 chips, but have not been able to for several years since the software and hardware that programs them runs on Windows XP and needs to check the license before running and since XP is no longer secure our IT department no longer allows it on the network meaning we can no longer use the current set up.

Ideally we want to avoid dev boards and would like to program individual chips that can be put on a breadboard (these are the professor's requests). We want to use these within the context of a first semester digital class (undergrad) where the students can easily program simple circuits that will drive a 7 segment display, for example. The professor wants to expose the students, who build the circuits throughout the semester using 7400 series chips for their class labs, a more modern way of implimenting logic.

I have been looking around for some time now for the solution and have not been able to find exactly what we want. I want to know if anyone knows of a solution that will fill our needs: ability to program individual chips that can be breadboarded (adapter boards can be used with TQFPs), TTL compatible logic levels would be preferred, and ease of use (they won't have all semester to learn how to program).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    8 years ago

    --- Quote Start ---

    I must appologise for my post. It was late, I didnt read the message properly and I just fired something out.

    I think you will struggle to find anything to fit your bill directly? By how about something like a rasberry pie? (https://www.raspberrypi.org/) With the 40 pin GPIO connector you could easily wire up the outputs to a breadboard, and may be a more familiar environment to some students already, but now you're introducing custom external hardware. Plus this keeps it all in line with embedded systems that are pervasive in industry. And it's cheap.

    Going with the diligent (or similar) above may work, but you are going to be introducing tools that will be unfamiliar to the students (ISE, Vivado, Quartus) that will have a cost implication over time with licences. With the Pi, its all free and open source.

    --- Quote End ---

    Xilinx licensing for the low end devices is free just as it is for Altera, so little or no cost impact there. It would be good for university students to have exposure to Xilinx toolset flow (ISE, Vivado) as well as Altera (Quartus). University students should learn how to use Windows AND linux, not just one or another. That's what school is for.

    Yeah I know this is an Altera based forum but the real world out there is more than just Altera and university students should be exposed to multiple vendors.

    And as much as I like Raspberry PI (for embedded linux hacking) or Arduino (for embedded bare-metal hacking) these are basically software development platforms so they really serve a different purpose than, for example, the Digilent CPLD or FPGA based development boards do. Electrical engineers today do need exposure to embedded software concepts, so a lab with Arduino boards is probably a requirement as well (I think Raspberry PI is overkill, but that is my opinion). But an electrical engineer still needs to understand the concepts of circuits and gates and logic, how to use them, and when to use them. Not everything can be reduced to a software problem. At least not yet.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    8 years ago

    How about this:

    https://hackaday.com/2016/02/04/a-better-way-to-plug-a-cpld-into-a-breadboard/

    Maybe you could get it built by a contractor, since it has all the project files listed or tweak it and design your own.

    The original designer here might also have some useful input on your project needs (since he already built something like what you need).

    BTW, I don't understand why you could not just update the Software, since Altera/Intel still supports the MAX7000 series with current Software:

    https://www.altera.com/products/general/devices/max7k/utilities/m7k-software.html

    Do you mean that the PCs running Windows XP can't be updated to a later version of Windows? Or you don't have the budget to update

    that piece of the overall system?
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    8 years ago

    We have the hardware programmers (ZIF sockets and all) that uses an ISA card (yes ISA!). We have tried something like a USB to ISA adapter (in the past), but that never worked mostly because of the need for a 32 bit system (I think, again most of this is before I took the job). I came across the hackaday link before, but didn't look too closely at the chip he was using, but took a closer look thanks to your suggestion and will pursue using some of the chips we have and build our own boards if all we'll need is the USB blaster to program them. I will also continue on with the FPGAs as well. Good to have a backup plan! I was approved for a couple of board donations and will play around with those once received. Thanks for all the help.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    8 years ago

    I googled the ISA/ZIF programmers, and it sounds like you may have the LP3 or LP6? (skipped forward to show

    the generations of Altera programmers):

    https://youtu.be/momg3iovp5c?t=560

    I wonder if you could do something like seen here, where you have a simple breakout board with jumpers

    to the breadboard:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e6_-8fmmwg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le6jo5dplao (https://youtu.be/le6jo5dplao?t=1120)

    That would be more tedious and less organized for students to connect up than the hackaday project for the same

    number of IOs, but might open up more buying options. Maybe you already considered it and looked elsewhere.