Minimum fpga dev-kit/fpga

[Altera_Forum]

Hi Everyone, I am new to opencl and fpga programming. I would like to know some good fpga boards where i can test my some ideas. Looks to me opencl too have licensed attached. Also pls clear my confusion after reading so many pages on fpga's , Are intel and altera opencl same or do they have some differences (i know the merger). I come from SDR world. Thank you.

[Altera_Forum]

Regarding boards, a few of Altera's board partners have Stratix V, Arria 10 and Cyclone 5 SoC boards with OpenCL support. Altera's reference Stratix V and Arria 10 boards also support OpenCL. You can find more info by following the links posted in the "FPGA Platforms" section here: 

 https://www.altera.com/products/design-software/embedded-software-developers/opencl/developer-zone.html  Depending on your budget, you can choose from the 100$ Cyclone SoCs to high-end Arria 10 board for a couple thousand dollars.  Regarding Altera and Intel, Altera is now called Intel Programmable Solutions Group (PSG) and their OpenCL SDK has been renamed from "Altera SDK for OpenCL" to "Intel FPGA SDK for OpenCL"; so, the OpenCL SDK for FPGAs from Altera and Intel are the same. However, there is also an "Intel SDK for OpenCL" which is a different SDK that can be used on Intel CPUs, iGPUs and Xeon Phi.

[Altera_Forum]

Thank you. All clear now just got mixed up with gpu and fpga's SDKs.  

--- Quote Start ---  Regarding boards, a few of Altera's board partners have Stratix V, Arria 10 and Cyclone 5 SoC boards with OpenCL support. Altera's reference Stratix V and Arria 10 boards also support OpenCL. You can find more info by following the links posted in the "FPGA Platforms" section here: https://www.altera.com/products/design-software/embedded-software-developers/opencl/developer-zone.html Depending on your budget, you can choose from the 100$ Cyclone SoCs to high-end Arria 10 board for a couple thousand dollars. Regarding Altera and Intel, Altera is now called Intel Programmable Solutions Group (PSG) and their OpenCL SDK has been renamed from "Altera SDK for OpenCL" to "Intel FPGA SDK for OpenCL"; so, the OpenCL SDK for FPGAs from Altera and Intel are the same. However, there is also an "Intel SDK for OpenCL" which is a different SDK that can be used on Intel CPUs, iGPUs and Xeon Phi.  --- Quote End ---  

[Altera_Forum]

Do fpga boards loose some power/performance overtime like some of components in electronics. 

I am asking this as someone selling me board very cheap compare to what available online. Is it ok to buy old fpga boards ?

[Altera_Forum]

FPGAs support a limited number of reconfigurations, but this number is high-enough that they can last multiple years of intensive use. Other than that, I am not very sure about the effect of time on an FPGA. I think you would be able to get a more accurate answer from the more experienced people in the "FPGA, Hardcopy, and CPLD Discussion" section. Note that if your aim is to use OpenCL, make sure that the board you are buying supports OpenCL.

[Altera_Forum]

Modern FPGAs use SRAM cells which are basically just latches for programming. I have never heard of power/performance changing over time on a modern device.

[Altera_Forum]

thanks guys. Little more help required. Whats the difference between SoC (like DE1-SoC Board) and Board (like DE10-Nano Kit). Are not both standalone bootable systems, Can't i use tcp-networking,C/python code on both kits to interact with their fpga's etc. Is there any other major differences apart from LEs count or arm processor speed. Pls clear. Also i read i can use opencl to create and load fpga's on these boards as both are cyclone V and opencl supports cyclone V). Thank you.

[Altera_Forum]

Actually both of these boards are SoCs and can be used a standalone system. As you said, both of them also support OpenCL. The main different is the specifications of the Cyclone FPGA and the ARM core. There are also some differences in peripherals; e.g. DE10-Nano has a HDMI port, while DE1-SoC has VGA, or DE10-Nano has 7-segment but the other one doesn't. 

 For both of these boards you can run a light-weight Linux on the ARM core and then access the FPGA from that Linux using the direct connection available between the ARM and the FPGA. Furthermore, the external DDR memory is shared between the ARM and the FPGA. The network port is also likely accessible from the Linux. C and OpenCL are supported on both platforms, but I am not sure about Python.