"On board quality - I paid a High School/College kid in Sri Lanka to do the board; I will give him your feedback." the most beautiful thing i'll read today.
Can someone explain why someone would choose an FPGA over a standard microprocessor? What advantages could this UPDuino have over an Arduino? Also, how do ASIC's figure into this comparison?<p>My understanding is that microprocessors excel at executing logic using an onboard general-purpose ALU sequentially and quickly.<p>On the other hand, an FPGA excels at doing a specified task as the hardware (gates) are programmed/hooked up in a certain way to execute that one task.<p>ASIC's are processors that are designed from the factory to execute a specific task (kind of like pre-programmed, non-reprogrammable FPGA's).<p>Can someone please fill in the gaps please? I have a general idea, but I'm not sure I understand all the differences correctly.
All these new affordable FPGA are getting really tempting to learn more about them. I've been debating for a while to get the TinyFPGA BX board from Sparkfun. Though I don't have a specific application yet. Are FPGA used in robotics often? Or is the response time so low (relatively) that it makes more sense to stick with a uC?<p>Side note, this might seem like stupid question, but can anyone explain what APIO[1] is (which TinyFPGA uses)? I'm kind of confused what it's used for.<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/FPGAwars/apio" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/FPGAwars/apio</a>
I wanted to get into FPGA programming recently after feeling confident mastering my microcontroller skills and discovered that complex programmable logic devices (CPDLs) can be a stepping stone to full on FPGA prototyping. They somewhat of a similar high-level functional design and there are some nice guides online to get started on some projects.
There's a v2[0] of the same board that includes a USB<->SPI to make it even easier to program.<p>[0]: <a href="http://gnarlygrey.atspace.cc/development-platform.html#upduino" rel="nofollow">http://gnarlygrey.atspace.cc/development-platform.html#updui...</a>
Can this run a RISC-V core?<p>It would be very nice to bring the cost of experimentation in CPU cores down to something easily accessible to even students. In the same way that RPI brought computing and hardware interfacing down to basically anyone who can afford a cup of coffee.
A critical advantage of these new FPGA boards is not only are they at the same price point like Arduino clones and many other common maker components, but they are also small enough to be useful as permanent component in a project.<p>With earlier FPGA Learning boards, the designers tried to cram a ton of stuff into them, usually a gazillion pins, leds, input devices and connectors. You can't easily put that on a Raspberry Pi or Arduino.
Almost the same FPGA (Lattice Semiconductor FPGA ICE5LP4K) has been found in the iPhone 7: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160916230725/http://www.chipworks.com/about-chipworks/overview/blog/apple-iphone-7-teardown" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20160916230725/http://www.chipwo...</a>
How does one go about developing on an FPGA (i'm an absolute noob familiar only with Arduinos and ESPs)<p>Are there any go-to IDEs that everyone uses? Resources/tutorials towards a `blinkenlights 101` project that are especially useful?<p>Edit: thank you all for the very excellent answers! I'm going to lose so much productivity over this!
Word of warning: my UPDuino v2 (these have a USB connector so you don't need a separate programmer) worked, but it heats up a lot immediately. I suspect a short circuit somewhere due to bad soldering. Requests to have it replaced were never answered.
Im interested in low cost FPGAs, like around the $5 range. My goal is to make a closed loop stepper microcontroller.<p>Ive never did FPGA design. what's good resources to start reading to get caught up with the basics? Figure I should ask those more in the know.. :)
My complaint about this new breed of maker-level FPGA boards is that the information on shipping is a bit sketchy. I believe most ship from the US (I think one didn't even tell where from) and that often leads to hazzles with customs etc. which I would prefer to know beforehand...
This is pretty great. I have been wanting to get into FPGA programming so it's nice to know how low the "basement" price is for the essential equipment.<p>Can anyone else recommend any other cheap entry level boards?
this thread might be dead now but can someone please explain why an FPGA is such a big deal, I always see them mentioned but just don't have an idea of what they can be made into? Can anyone give project ideas of why it would be better to use on FPGA? (not sarcasm, I'm genuinely curious)