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Author Topic: FPGA  (Read 3392 times)

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Offline vidamTopic starter

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FPGA
« on: May 20, 2008, 09:15:31 AM »
I've been playing around at work with FPGA to do some experiements with LEDS and PWM. I learned a lot, but have so much more to learn about configuring hardware and instantiating hardware in the FPGA and then writing the low-level software. Aside from the steep learning curve, and the fact that FPGA does not have ADC ports built-in (meaning you have to buy external ADC chip), why more people don't use them in there robotics applications. I checked cost and found a few development kits as low as $199..

So doesn't seem that expensive and you can get a pretty nice NIOS altera FPGA with Cyclone 3 as well.


Offline alessio136

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Re: FPGA
« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2008, 10:29:19 AM »
I've been playing around at work with FPGA to do some experiements with LEDS and PWM. I learned a lot, but have so much more to learn about configuring hardware and instantiating hardware in the FPGA and then writing the low-level software. Aside from the steep learning curve, and the fact that FPGA does not have ADC ports built-in (meaning you have to buy external ADC chip), why more people don't use them in there robotics applications. I checked cost and found a few development kits as low as $199..

So doesn't seem that expensive and you can get a pretty nice NIOS altera FPGA with Cyclone 3 as well.



I think FPGAs are the best solution for robots... their internal architecture allows them to paly many tasks at the same time without loosing clock cycles... move servo, read sensor, move sensor, read another sensor: you can do all these operation at the same time using different parts of the chip.

FPGA is a quite young (20 years) technology and that's why it's harder to find cheap development board and entry level documentation.

Try Spartan 3E FPGA... I used it at school and it was great.

Offline Nyx

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Re: FPGA
« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2008, 10:49:15 AM »
One reason people don't use them is they are more complicated... Require some knowledge of the internal circuitry.

Offline alessio136

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Re: FPGA
« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2008, 11:06:53 AM »
a friend of mine is buying from THIS WEBSITE.

I'm quite interested in BASYS cheap version: good enough for learning.

S3EBOARD is definitely a very powerful solution.

Offline vidamTopic starter

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Re: FPGA
« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2008, 11:40:15 AM »
One reason people don't use them is they are more complicated... Require some knowledge of the internal circuitry.

There appears a huge gap in the commercial market for FPGA... a user-friendly, hobbyist verison FPGA GUI for Robotics hobbyists.


Offline Steel_monkey

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Re: FPGA
« Reply #5 on: May 20, 2008, 11:48:49 AM »
In embedded solution FPGA is very rare used without support of MCU ( ARM or something like that). FPGA is very powerful tool, but IMO it is not suited for hobby robotics ( I am not talking about Sandstorm of course  ;D ). Usually, MCU make all slow job (like servo/sensor, they are really very sloooow tasks), and FPGA try to realise something like digital filter. Parallel tasks look cool until you get into troubles with high-speed communications and ground loops. Some slow tasks even can be hard to realize. For example, simple (for MCU) button debounce is not so trivial in fast FPGA. Also a little advanced knowledges rather than school arithmetics course is required. However, for tight timing tasks ( say > 10 MHz with processing ) FPGA is the simplest solution.

Offline vidamTopic starter

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Re: FPGA
« Reply #6 on: May 20, 2008, 12:43:38 PM »
Thanks! everyone for their input and any future responses. I'll run all the information provided on this post with my co-worker/trainer to figure out which development kit is the most cheap and has the best features and also about the trouble with running slower tasks such as servo on an FPGA with external MCU mentioned in one of the posts.




Offline benji

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Re: FPGA
« Reply #7 on: May 20, 2008, 02:26:03 PM »
by the way folks, anyone has a good tutorial on FPGAs, let share
good ol' BeNNy

Offline vidamTopic starter

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Re: FPGA
« Reply #8 on: May 20, 2008, 08:54:06 PM »
by the way folks, anyone has a good tutorial on FPGAs, let share

You could take a look at the PWM example in Chapter 10. This is the example I did at work with the Nios II FPGA board.
 http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~sedwards/classes/2007/4840/qts_qii5v4.pdf

 


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