what is the best FPGA starter kit.....?

Question

for an electrical enginer who wants to master digital design. I want an FPGA board where I can find enough information to master FPGA and VHDL...any ideas.?

Answer 1

Try Lattice and their ispLEVER Starter Pack -- it's free! The internal editor has color-coded VHDL templates to get you started coding, so you can focus less on the language and more on what you want to do. They have a wide variety of development boards, so whatever you are interested in, they probably have one for your specialty area.

The ispLEVER software is a real bargain, too. You get Synplicity and Mentor synthesis and ModelSim simulation (both functional and back-annotated) for under $700. If you talk nice to the local rep, you'll probably get it even cheaper. ModelSim (an industry standard), by itself, is usually like $5000.

I'd also recommend "VHDL for Programmable Logic" by Kevin Skahill. It was originally done for Cypress Semiconductor years ago, when people were first starting to use VHDL. It has many good basic examples and some convenient reference pages. I don't know if it's been updated for VHDL 2002. Others like the more advanced type of reference, but they typically didn't start from zero (like I did, too). Maybe Skahill first, then something else?

Answer 2

it quite is like writing hi international to writing a database software. It quite relies upon on what you opt to do. CPLD is what you pass and pass play with it. prepare you writing skills and charm. FPGA is a lot extra area so which you would be able to play with. in case you're transforming into some small and sluggish circuitry, that shouldn't make that lots alterations. yet once you're initiate writing some quickly logics and complicated circuitry. you will possibly opt to be very careful approximately your routing and your timing interior the FPGA.

Answer 3

I haven't tried any, but you can have a look at:

http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xebiz/designResources/ip_product_details.jsp?key=DO-SP3E1600E-DK-UNI-G

or

http://www.altera.com/products/devkits/kit-index.html

Answer 4

try yahoo message board LOL!!