FPGAs

[Altera_Forum]

I'm trying to learn FPGAs any takers??

[Altera_Forum]

what are you trying to learn - and what problems are you having?

[Altera_Forum]

I want to save about 40000 bits out of a bit stream over about 1 second of time (coming out of a GPS module), but I don't know how. I would try to use a serial memory chip, but am unfamiliar with microcontroller to memory chip interfacing. I guess I was sort of thinking that an FPGA could act as a memory chip??? 

 If I configure an FPGA to have like 40000 to 50000 OR gates, and individually signal each individual or gate such that it acts like a memory bit location?????   I really don't understand FPGAs or the development environments or anything like that. I'm interested in doing this from a 'low end' standpoint.

[Altera_Forum]

There are a lot of FPGAs. 

Some have a plenty of internal memory. Of course you can use internal logic cells as registers for memory but this is not the best use. You should use internal dedicated memory blocks.

[Altera_Forum]

I'm trying to use an Arduino board, and want to sample the GPS Module bitstream (with a baud of 4800 bits per second) at an interval of like 20us per sample. 

 I wonder how much I'm going to outlay in trying to configure an FPGA such that it will receive all 40000 to 50000 samples from the Arduino/GPS setup. Does a person need an IDE to work with FPGAs ??? How much do FPGAs cost, how much does an IDE cost?????

[Altera_Forum]

The IDE is called Quartus II and is free. See www.altera.com 

The FPGAs are kind of expensive 5 to 30 dollars for the application that you talked about. They are programmed in Verilog or VHDL. Use google to find out more.

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  The IDE is called Quartus II and is free. See www.altera.com (http://www.altera.com) The FPGAs are kind of expensive 5 to 30 dollars for the application that you talked about. They are programmed in Verilog or VHDL. Use google to find out more.  --- Quote End ---    The free version only supports the low end devices, which will probably suit this application. You can get starter development boards for a few hundred dollars. Low end altera parts may be individually $5-50, but then you have to cost in all the extra parts and cost of developing your own board.

[Altera_Forum]

Somewhere, I thoght I read that the Cyclone ll development board would be good. Is that variation becoming sort of obsolete, or is it still seeing a considerable amount of use?? 

 I may try to buy a Cyclone lll board in like 6 weeks if that doesn't cost a whole bunch more.   Any suggestions would be helpful.

[Altera_Forum]

I only started working with FPGAs about a year and I am still fairly low end. But I have found the Cyclone II a very useful board for implementing my designs, I would definitely recommend it.

[Altera_Forum]

You can use a developement board to do what you want, its a comparatively easy task. The Cyclone II can have a NIOS processor in it, but you could do what you want in logic, and there is enough memory in the Cyclone II. Also there are a number of boards with memory attached that you can buy, search for Cyclone II dev boards. They are not too expensive. The Quartus software has quite a steep learning curve but seems to be pretty good. And its free!