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Cheap FPGA Development Boards

joelw.id.au

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Re: Cheap FPGA Development Boards

#31

Post by tverbeure »

I can't let a topic like this pass by without mentioning commercial (often obsolete) FPGA-based products that are repurposed as development boards. They usually offer FPGAs with much higher capacity for rock bottom eBay prices.

* Pano Logic G1 board: https://github.com/tomverbeure/panologic

* Pano Logic G2 board: https://github.com/tomverbeure/panologic-g2

* Colorlight 5A-75B: https://github.com/q3k/chubby75

* Cisco HWIC-3G-CDMA: https://github.com/tomverbeure/cisco-hwic-3g-cdma

Playing with these has been a fun hobby of mine and while I have a box full of 'real' development boards, I usually find myself going back to the Cisco board for my personal projects.

Re: Cheap FPGA Development Boards

#32

Post by postalrat »

tverbeure wrote: post #31

I can't let a topic like this pass by without mentioning commercial (often obsolete) FPGA-based products that are repurposed as development boards. They usually offer FPGAs with much higher capacity for rock bottom eBay prices. * Pano Logic G1 board: https://github.com/tomverbeure/panologic * Pano Logic G2 board: https://github.com/tomverbeure/panologic-g2 * Colorlight 5A-75B: https://github.com/q3k/chubby75 * Cisco…

Comtech AHA363PCIE0301G might be a future option. They are cheap but I don't think anyone has reverse engineered it yet.

Re: Cheap FPGA Development Boards

#33

Post by metaphor »

tyingq wrote: post #17
metaphor wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you need 5V compatibility... The devil in the details is that when 5V-tolerant I/O are naively configured as such, device reliability drops like a rock. You'll likely find this disclosed in the manual fine print. Something to consider when prototyping a design destined for production.

In these boards it's not "5V tolerant". It's actual 5V I/O. EPF10K70. They are obsolete, and so the production part doesn't apply. Solely for hobby stuff.

Fair enough.

What's the software requirement side look like? Intel's website[1; under Legacy Devices] says Quartus II v9.0 was the latest release that could target FLEX 10K devices. Doesn't look like you can download that release anymore, and liable to run into compatibility issues just installing on modern OSs without a VM.

[1] https://fpgasoftware.intel.com/devices/

Re: Cheap FPGA Development Boards

#34

Post by duskwuff »

metaphor wrote: post #33
tyingq wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In these boards it's not "5V tolerant". It's actual 5V I/O. EPF10K70. They are obsolete, and so the production part doesn't apply. Solely for hobby stuff.

Fair enough. What's the software requirement side look like? Intel's website[1; under Legacy Devices] says Quartus II v9.0 was the latest release that could target FLEX 10K devices. Doesn't look like you can download that release anymore, and liable to run into compatibility issues just installing on modern OSs without a VM. [1] https://fpgasoftware.intel.com/devices/

This only became an issue a few months ago, and it's really annoying if you need older software. Intel/Altera's site used to let you download older releases; it now redirects to a discontinuation notice.

Re: Cheap FPGA Development Boards

#35

Post by tverbeure »

postalrat wrote: post #32
tverbeure wrote: post #31

I can't let a topic like this pass by without mentioning commercial (often obsolete) FPGA-based products that are repurposed as development boards. They usually offer FPGAs with much higher capacity for rock bottom eBay prices. * Pano Logic G1 board: https://github.com/tomverbeure/panologic * Pano Logic G2 board: https://github.com/tomverbeure/panologic-g2 * Colorlight 5A-75B: https://github.com/q3k/chubby75 * Cisco…

Comtech AHA363PCIE0301G might be a future option. They are cheap but I don't think anyone has reverse engineered it yet.

I reverse engineered that one partially as well, and somebody has been able to get to an LED blinky.

However, it has the issue that Intel recently took down Quartus 11.0, which is the last version that supports these FPGAs.

Re: Cheap FPGA Development Boards

#36

Post by metaphor »

duskwuff wrote: post #34
metaphor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. What's the software requirement side look like? Intel's website[1; under Legacy Devices] says Quartus II v9.0 was the latest release that could target FLEX 10K devices. Doesn't look like you can download that release anymore, and liable to run into compatibility issues just installing on modern OSs without a VM. [1] https://fpgasoftware.intel.com/devices/

This only became an issue a few months ago, and it's really annoying if you need older software. Intel/Altera's site used to let you download older releases; it now redirects to a discontinuation notice.

> ...and it's really annoying if you need older software.

Bummer, and a real shame given how seemingly common regressions are in this space. Not my specialization, but anecdotally over a decade or so, I've encountered scenarios on MAX 7000 and Cyclone II (Quartus II v9.0 builds, v10.x breaks), Virtex-7 (Vivado v2018.3 builds, v2019.1 breaks) and Virtex-5 (ISE v14.6 builds, v14.7 breaks).

Re: Cheap FPGA Development Boards

#38

Post by CamperBob2 »

ur-whale wrote: post #10

My favorite ebay FPGA board vendor is QMTech. Cheap, well made,large choice, decent documentation. [edit]: they also have an aliexpress store.

Putting in a plug for ZTex as well (https://www.ztex.de). Not the cheapest but far from the most expensive, and they publish full schematics. Stefan Z.'s support is first-rate in my experience.

Re: Cheap FPGA Development Boards

#40

Post by BenjiWiebe »

tyingq wrote: post #20
baybal2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do people need 5V for these days?

I have a lot of old 8 bit computers, and there's many interesting things you can do with a native 5v FPGA or CPLD there. I assume interfacing simply with cheap ATMEL and PIC MCUs is another use case. The university boards can also support 3.3v.

A lot of cheap Atmel micros can run at 3.3v and I think at least some go down to 2.7v.
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