Which FPGA Development Kit To Buy

[th_fpga_2022]

Hi,

May I ask which FPGA development kit I should buy in order to learn external memory interface please ??

I have found two options:

Product: Intel® Stratix® 10 DX FPGA Development Kit

Link: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/fpga/development-kits/stratix/10-dx.html

Product: Intel® Stratix® 10 MX FPGA Development Kit

Link: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/fpga/development-kits/stratix/10-mx.html

However, I can NOT find any sample video demo or tutorial on how to setup and run external memory testing for the DDR4 DIMM. May I ask if there is any such video demo or tutorial ?? Or at least, is there any user guide that would walk me thru the basic setup and/or execution steps ??

Thanks,
TH

[ak6dn · Accepted solution]

Does the board have to be PCIE plugin and DDR4 based SDRAM?

Those are, but beware they are very pricey (US$10K and US$8.5K each). Hope you have a big budget.

There are lots of boards in the sub US$1K range that have DDR3, DDR2, or DDR SDRAM.

[sstrell]

If a board has an EMIF, chances are the example projects that come with it include a project to help understand how the EMIF works.  Before buying a board, you can download the files for the board to see example projects.

[th_fpga_2022]

Hi,

Thank you for your kind replies.

I will read documentation and try to understand how EMIF works.

Have a nice day,

Sincerely,

TH

[AdzimZM_Intel]

Hi,

You can refer to EMIF IP User Guide or Design Example User Guide on how to create and test the EMIF IP.

The user guide is provided for each device family.

You can refer to EMIF IP Support Page for more details: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/programmable/support-resources/support-centers/emif-support.html

Thanks,

Adzim

[th_fpga_2022]

Hi AdzimZM_Intel,

I will check out the documentation.

Thanks,

Have a nice day,

TH

[AdzimZM_Intel]

I’m glad that your question has been addressed, I now transition this thread to community support. If you have a new question, feel free to open a new thread to get the support from Intel experts. Otherwise, the community users will continue to help you on this thread. Thank you.

[th_fpga_2022]

Thank you,

Have a nice day,

TH

[leonardo_forum]

I suggest you to look into a device with an Hard DDR Memory Controller, so you only have to configure some parameters and optimize timing margins.

A DE1-Soc for few hundreads euro will be more than enough for learning a lot of things.

[th_fpga_2022]

Hi leonardo_forum,

Thank you.

Have a nice day.

TH