23 Mar
2009
23 Mar
'09
8:24 a.m.
On 23 Mar 2009 at 3:50, Michael Hart wrote:
Anyway before I go off and buy some type of kit to
play with these
technologies maybe one of you can tell me of a cost effective product
that will give me good hands on exposure to these technologies.
If you feel uncomfortable using FPGA in your initial designs, don't
forget CPLD. Both Altera and Xilinx make these little beasts which
can take the place of a pile of random logic and are programmed in
Verilog or VHDL.
Using a CPLD with a commodity microcontroller is an inexpensive way
to get your feet wet with an HDL without straying too far from
familiar territory. Some CPLDs are still available in PLCC with 5v
logic levels--just the thing for implementing a vintage design.
And they're comparatively cheap--a 72 macrocell Xilinx CPLD in a 44-
pin PLCC package will run you less than $4 in single-unit quantities.
--Chuck