Count me as a customer for life[noparse]:)[/noparse] I have a stereo microscope, but I still want a board ready to go. There are lots of commercial apps. I think this is potentially very good for you.
et al:
Here is an idea that would take me about a year to accomplish, but would fall out of you like water off a duck's back-->
How about hanging Atera's cheapest FPGA board off of a Prop using a $50 cable? That way everybody could get 8MB of DRAM, a bunch of SRAM, additional VGA out, etc. etc. etc.
The value would be in the documentation and in the proprietary objects that you could offer.
And it would sell Altera's boards to a new customer base... which should lower the cost to Parallax[noparse]:)[/noparse]
The Terasic Cyclone boards are cheaper than Altera's, and Digilent sells a nice Xilinx Spartan3 board starting at $99; I've got one. There are lots of options.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
I've used both Xilinx and Altera CPLDs. The Altera MAX II CPLDs are really FPGAs, and are therefore more interesting and advanced than the Xilinx ones. The Altera tools are much easier to use. Also, the only Xilinx CPLDs I have are rather old ones like the XC9536 and XC9572, although they are still made.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
This will get my 8080 emulator and CP/M running nicely.
Then there will be loads of I/O for the Altair front panel, full of LEDs and switches, that it will sit behind.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
It was just for information, go with what flavour you like but I thought the point of a CPLD is that it isn't an FPGA, i.e. cheap fast with internal storage.
The Altera device I'm using is actually a small FPGA with on-chip configuration memory. They call it a CPLD for marketing reasons. It's a much better device than the Coolrunner in this application.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
At first sight it looks to me as if it would be beneficial to swap the positions of CON5 and CON6 as there are lot of nets crossing over on their way to the Prop. Or even move them to the other side of the board.
Similarly there is a lot of net crossing between the RAM and CPLD. Placement and pin swapping can make life easy for the auto router.
Or perhaps this is just your first shot. I'm sure you know what you are doing.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
Actually looking at that placement I'm a little confused:
1. I can't see the 8 bit bus and controls passing from Prop to CPLD.
2 I can't see any IOs of the CPLD making it off the board via connector or pads. Like IO pins 15 to 21, 26 to 31 etc. as I thought was the intention.
Are we only looking at 1 layer of net or something?
Now looking back at the schematic those CPLD IOs are not shown connected at all, as it stands the CPLD can do nothing but provide logic and drive the RAM.
Is there a newer schematic?
Looking at the schematic it shows the Prop/CPLD bus using Prop IO P0 to P2 and P4 to P11. I guess the 8 lines P4 to P11 are intended for data and the others for control. This implies that communication over the bus will always need shifting operations. Could we not speed things up by using P0-P7 for data and avoiding the shifts ?
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For me, the past is not over yet.
In my soft-CPU design I have given the propeller 8 bidirectional data lines and 4 control lines to the FPGA, enabling 15 different commands: 6 registers write, 4 registers read, 4 clocks, 1 supercommand (8 databits interpreted as command)
I thought I'd added those signals from the Propeller to the bus connections, but I seem to have forgotten them. I'll add them now and update the schematic.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
The placement isn't complete but I tried the autorouter on it and got almost 100% completion. I've decided to make it a 4-layer board - much easier to route and less likely to have problems with lots of loads on the CPLD.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
OK cool. I would have been tempted to keep the CPLD/SRAM bus separate from the PROP/CPLD bus but perhaps the schematic is getting crowded enough already.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
I've reduced the signal via size to the smallest my usual supplier can manage (0.6 mm dia, 0.3 mm hole), and it routed very easily, even with the extra connections (apart from a couple of nets). New image uploaded:
If you think it's OK I'll finish the placement and do the routing properly. I'll make it as small as possible to keep the cost down. I might use 6 mil tracks instead of 8 mil, they won't cost any more.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
The decoupling capacitors seem to be wondering off the board, I'm sure you know where you want them.
Are there going to be any mounting holes or such ?
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For me, the past is not over yet.
Comments
Count me as a customer for life[noparse]:)[/noparse] I have a stereo microscope, but I still want a board ready to go. There are lots of commercial apps. I think this is potentially very good for you.
et al:
Here is an idea that would take me about a year to accomplish, but would fall out of you like water off a duck's back-->
How about hanging Atera's cheapest FPGA board off of a Prop using a $50 cable? That way everybody could get 8MB of DRAM, a bunch of SRAM, additional VGA out, etc. etc. etc.
The value would be in the documentation and in the proprietary objects that you could offer.
And it would sell Altera's boards to a new customer base... which should lower the cost to Parallax[noparse]:)[/noparse]
Rich
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Then there will be loads of I/O for the Altair front panel, full of LEDs and switches, that it will sit behind.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
www.xilinx.com/products/devkits/HW-CRII-SK-G.htm
Graham
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Post Edited (Leon) : 10/3/2008 9:01:55 AM GMT
$39
It was just for information, go with what flavour you like but I thought the point of a CPLD is that it isn't an FPGA, i.e. cheap fast with internal storage.
Graham
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Post Edited (Leon) : 10/3/2008 10:53:53 AM GMT
Thanks
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Any new notices/progress on this ?
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Regards.
Alberto.
I'll see if I can get it done tonight.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
www.leonheller.com/Propeller/prop-cpld.gif
After I've routed the critical tracks I'll use the autorouter to save time, it does a good job on this type of board.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
At first sight it looks to me as if it would be beneficial to swap the positions of CON5 and CON6 as there are lot of nets crossing over on their way to the Prop. Or even move them to the other side of the board.
Similarly there is a lot of net crossing between the RAM and CPLD. Placement and pin swapping can make life easy for the auto router.
Or perhaps this is just your first shot. I'm sure you know what you are doing.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
1. I can't see the 8 bit bus and controls passing from Prop to CPLD.
2 I can't see any IOs of the CPLD making it off the board via connector or pads. Like IO pins 15 to 21, 26 to 31 etc. as I thought was the intention.
Are we only looking at 1 layer of net or something?
Now looking back at the schematic those CPLD IOs are not shown connected at all, as it stands the CPLD can do nothing but provide logic and drive the RAM.
Is there a newer schematic?
Looking at the schematic it shows the Prop/CPLD bus using Prop IO P0 to P2 and P4 to P11. I guess the 8 lines P4 to P11 are intended for data and the others for control. This implies that communication over the bus will always need shifting operations. Could we not speed things up by using P0-P7 for data and avoiding the shifts ?
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For me, the past is not over yet.
@Heater
Here's the current schematic:
www.leonheller.com/Propeller/Prop-CPLD.pdf
I thought I'd added those signals from the Propeller to the bus connections, but I seem to have forgotten them. I'll add them now and update the schematic.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Post Edited (Leon) : 11/9/2008 8:03:47 PM GMT
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For me, the past is not over yet.
www.leonheller.com/Propeller/Prop-CPLD.pdf
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Post Edited (Leon) : 11/9/2008 10:05:04 PM GMT
www.leonheller.com/Propeller/prop-cpld_layout.GIF
The placement isn't complete but I tried the autorouter on it and got almost 100% completion. I've decided to make it a 4-layer board - much easier to route and less likely to have problems with lots of loads on the CPLD.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
I can see in the schematic an address/data bus between CPLD and RAM.
I can see an IO bus going out to CON7 and CON8.
So far so good. But I can't see what happens to P0 to P10 from the prop.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
I've uploaded the new version:
www.leonheller.com/Propeller/Prop-CPLD.pdf
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
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For me, the past is not over yet.
www.leonheller.com/Propeller/prop-cpld_layout.GIF
If you think it's OK I'll finish the placement and do the routing properly. I'll make it as small as possible to keep the cost down. I might use 6 mil tracks instead of 8 mil, they won't cost any more.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Suzuki SV1000S motorcycle
Are there going to be any mounting holes or such ?
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For me, the past is not over yet.