From: glen herrmannsfeldt on
John Adair <g1(a)enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
(snip)

> The other aspect that I ddn't see mention of is that the larger
> devices are not usually covered by the "free" versions of tools so you
> may want to qualify how big a device you want.

I believe that isn't quite right. The high-end devices aren't
covered by the free tools. Last time I checked the large Spartan's
were, but not the large Virtex. Comparing the two families isn't
so easy, though, but the OP did specify Spartan.

-- glen
From: John Adair on
Bigger Spartan's are not covered by Webpack version either details
http://www.xilinx.com/publications/matrix/Software_matrix.pdf. Altera
also has something similar in a limit from my memory.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd. - Home of Merrick. The HPC Solution.


On 19 Oct, 09:22, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...(a)ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> John Adair <g...(a)enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
>
> (snip)
>
> > The other aspect that I ddn't see mention of is that the larger
> > devices are not usually covered by the "free" versions of tools so you
> > may want to qualify how big a device you want.
>
> I believe that isn't quite right.  The high-end devices aren't
> covered by the free tools.  Last time I checked the large Spartan's
> were, but not the large Virtex.  Comparing the two families isn't
> so easy, though, but the OP did specify Spartan.
>
> -- glen

From: nwreader on
I have foundation so compiling for large FPGAs is not a problem. There
seems to me to be a gap between
the exisiting $200/$300 boards & the $2000 and up boards. This gap is
probably not big enough
for commercial vendors which is why I asked if other people are interested
in joining up for a larger
"naked" FPGA board with lot of IOs so that it can be customized for whatever
usage. The large FPGAs
really need assembly with X-ray inspection to verify the soldering so doing
it with manual tools is not
appealing to me. But professional assembly has a large setup charge so doing
a number of boards is
necessary to get the per board cost down.

Low cost & fast IO is not a problem, spending the money on the FPGA rather
than setup charges for PCB &
assembly is the aim for a group buy.

"nwreader" <noone(a)home.com> wrote in message
news:BvcCm.1404$MZ1.582(a)newsfe11.iad...
> Is there any interest in a group buy & design of a Xilinx fpga board ?
> I would like a fairly large Spartan FPGA + lots of IO expansion + low cost
> $200 - $250 usd.
> The exisiting FPGA boards on the market seems either too expensive or
> small FPGA or too little
> expansion potential.
>
> The idea is to get a high capacity & low cost expandable board via a group
> buy to save on the
> PCB + assembly. Probably only for US participants.
>


From: nobody on
newbie,

I would be interested. Having just completed a similar project, having
posted a similar topic, and found a lot of interest, what is your
ideal outcome of this project? On the topic of daughter boards what if
the they were connected to themselves board to board like, bga, no
cost?

Cy Drollinger

From: nwreader on
The ideal outcome is everyone get one or more FPGA boards, ( I'd like 4 or
5 ), with a fairly
large FPGA + power supply + JTAG config + several IO connectors for
$200-$250 per board.
Daughter cards can be connected anyway you wish.

My other possibility is to connect several cheap exisitng boards together to
form a FPGA cluster
for larger design implementation. Any design will have to be suitably
partitioned between the FPGAs.

"nobody" <cydrollinger(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
news:55630cde-7e03-4483-a250-68d9583369fd(a)12g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
> newbie,
>
> I would be interested. Having just completed a similar project, having
> posted a similar topic, and found a lot of interest, what is your
> ideal outcome of this project? On the topic of daughter boards what if
> the they were connected to themselves board to board like, bga, no
> cost?
>
> Cy Drollinger
>