Life after Nano??
mindrobots
Posts: 6,506
I think a number of us Nano owners are wondering what path to take for future testing and development. Each release of an FPGA image bdings our Nanos closer and closer to be not quite a Propeller 2. Where do we turn?
The DE2-115 option is expensive and there's the question of if the expansion boards are available and how many.
The official Parallax FPGA is exciting but there hasn't been much talk about it lately. Is it still an option? Is there a timeframe for its availability? How much?? It would be really cool to be able to get a pair of the Parallax FPGAs for a little more than a DE2. That could lead to some exciting P2 to P2 expeimenting.
The third option is to continue to limp along with our Nanos excepting diminishing capabilities until we drop out of the testing program. Not a happy thought the active participation has been a lotof fun and hopefully in some small way beneficial to Parallax.
Its nearing annual bonus time around the house which means there is some money earmarked for an FPGA upgrade. What options will exist in a couple weeks? A month?
Will I regret buying a DE2 to find out in a few more weeks I could have had a more economical Parallax FPGA or maybe even two??
What say ye, Parallax? What path forward do you see for your testers? Especially those of us that have Nano investments???
Thanks!
The DE2-115 option is expensive and there's the question of if the expansion boards are available and how many.
The official Parallax FPGA is exciting but there hasn't been much talk about it lately. Is it still an option? Is there a timeframe for its availability? How much?? It would be really cool to be able to get a pair of the Parallax FPGAs for a little more than a DE2. That could lead to some exciting P2 to P2 expeimenting.
The third option is to continue to limp along with our Nanos excepting diminishing capabilities until we drop out of the testing program. Not a happy thought the active participation has been a lotof fun and hopefully in some small way beneficial to Parallax.
Its nearing annual bonus time around the house which means there is some money earmarked for an FPGA upgrade. What options will exist in a couple weeks? A month?
Will I regret buying a DE2 to find out in a few more weeks I could have had a more economical Parallax FPGA or maybe even two??
What say ye, Parallax? What path forward do you see for your testers? Especially those of us that have Nano investments???
Thanks!
Comments
Some already have these.
This is slightly larger than Nano, with ~ 12% more gates. Not a huge jump, but it is also Cyclone V, which may buy other extras.
One would expect MHz to improve (otherwise why would Altera bother with Cyclone V).
Right now, there are no Parallax Builds for Cyclone V ( BEMICRO CV etc) , and it lacks a SDRAM memory of the right type.
Other FPGA boards are being released, so it may be a slightly larger one becomes available.
Unless someone is an FPGA collector, I don't think many will be buying possible candidates until Parallax commits to suporting something new and possibly offering it for sale. I don't really feel like spending money on speculation and non-Parallax suggestions.
Timeline - we are looking at making the first production units available ~2.5 -> 3 months out (somewhere in April).
FPGA - we are targeting Alteras Cyclone V E A7 series FPGA:
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/5CEFA7F23C8N/544-2755-ND/3880776
Here's a screeny I took of the land pattern I created for the FPGA last week. It is 22 x 22 BGA pins, for a total of 484 pins spaced 2mm apart from each other. Uniquely naming each pin designator was a pain >_<.
Path forward for developers - personally, I'd love-love to see this FPGA board have life beyond P2 test binaries. I think it would be awesome to openly share and design a simple CPU from the ground up with all of you. The Verilog/VHDL could be shared on the forums and be available for anyone to tweak/modify/download and program onto their Parallax A7 FPGA board. There are some amazingly talented people on this forum and what better way is there to learn than by working with your peers! Who knows - if the design is robust, perhaps we could even make the jump to silicon. Now that would be cool!
Hope this helps. Cheers!
That sure is a bunch of tiny pins packed into a square inch!
So, if I put my project manager hat on and pull out my magic estimator, I see that February is effectively over and from what you describe, there is quite a bit of work to be done before you are even creating a first board. With this, an optimistic 3 months puts us into June before we have a first run of production boards (I think that is optimistic but we'll go with it).
This brings us to the DE2 for more immediate continued participation in the P2 program. This choice totally depends on the availability of the DE2 add-on board. Are there any of those in stock? If not, is there a production run in progress or planned soon? We need a timeline for add-on boards - that will certainly impact the decision to invest $500 in a DE2 (which in my case won't happen until there are add-on boards). If the DE2 add-on timeline gets close to the June Parallax FPGA timeline then the DE2 becomes a dead issue. From Parallax's viewpoint, I can see little benefit to a DE2 add-on run if it hasn't been started or won't be started very soon and certainly understand that.
So, no Parallax FPGA until June at best, potentially no point in a DE2 if there aren't add-on boards available (or already in production) and a Nano that gets less and less like a real P2 with each new image release.
Hmmmmm.......what's a fella to do?? It looks like the only option is to limp along on a Nano until the Parallax FPGA becomes available.
If these chips look Ok it moves testing to the next level.
First run chips on a breakout PCB perhaps?
All: I am quite happy with my DE0. When we understand the restrictions, if anyone has a specific requirement for some missing features I amsure Chip will oblige with a different build providing its genuine and you can do without something else.
I was hoping.planning to do some multi-cog and multi-P2 experimenting when I could afford the DE2 or the Parallax FPGA as a second P2 emulation platform. I realize it's just a timing issue on my part and I'm really just a hacker and not a serious contributor but I know others have had the same questions, so I thought I'd ask for an update.
I can always purchase a second Nano and play with multiple P2s with any features that remain in the Nano build offerings.
I'm also quite happy with the Nano and continue to be amazed at what a single COG P2 without all it's marbles can do. Makes your mouth water for the real silicon!
@ozpropdev, you are correct, I hadn't even considered the actual in my timeline. That could make me look at a whole new set of decisions to consider!
Sounds to me like the P2 design is pretty much done. Although we have no handle on when the endless tweaking bight finish.
Last I heard there was a P2 shuttle run due in April. That does not leave much time for getting a new FPGA board out for people to test P2 features.
That is not to say that a Parallax FPGA board might not be a wonderful idea in itself, no matter what the P2 schedule now is.
I am just in the reading stage but find this very interesting.
Thanks!
It should be back in stock in April, $199 from Terasic.
So if he gets one if these as soon as they are back in stock, starts wor on it right away and gets it built quickly, this would be a sometime in May solution if we place it on the timeline. Assuming they stay in stock. Two 3 cog P2 emulations for$400 would be fun to play with!
It doesn't have any external RAM, and I think that the FPGA (Xilinx Spartan 6) is smaller.
Parallax are a Terasic distributor, so could probably get a sample sooner than 'stock' dates.
However, there are still no Cyclone V builds of P2, and bringing up Cyclone V is probably not something you'd want to put inside the critical path to tape-out.
Cyclone V tests could suit an intern, or similar - someone Chip only needs to glance at, to check results and reports.
That's the problem with introducing any new board at this point, it requires a new build process and testing ad shouldn't be in the P2 critical path. That's why I was hoping for some solution with the DE2 due to more immediate timeframes with less work for everyone.
I'm not quite following - is this some different DE2 than the DE2-115 that current builds already support ?
I think it is in reference to availability of the add-on board.
C.W.
Sorry, it is a DE2-115 and it has an image ready to load and will continue to be the multi-cog platform. I would buy a DE2-115 but there are not expansion boards available. If there are no more expansion boards on the horizon, then the $500 for the DE2-115 doesn't seem like a smart purchase.
Me too. And also I wish the schematic will be available to anyone to make tweak/modify easy (like Propeller QuickStart PCB diptrace schematic).
Are you making the schematic in Diptrace?