Although interest in FPGAs is high, many wannabe designers are intimidated by the complex-looking development software as well as the price of development boards. It is difficult to simplify the software tools, but the hardware costs can be reduced dramatically by eliminating the JTAG cable. To achieve this we designed a small development board with an on-board programming interface.

 

With this board all you need is a standard USB serial port to download the FPGA software to the board where it is stored on an SD card. When you reset the board a microcontroller will automatically program the new firmware in the FPGA. And if you don’t need the FPGA you can use the microcontroller for other things. Furthermore, the board is breadboard compatible so adding peripherals is easy. All this considerably adds to lowering the threshold to using FPGAs in practice.

 

Elektor Academy and element14 have teamed up to bring you this review as an exclusive webinar, presented by designer Raymond Vermeulen and editor Jan Buiting. They will be discussing the appealing features of this board, how the project came about and what you can do with it. Join them in this webinar, get first hand technical details from the project leader and enter into a debate on design and other technical aspects during the live Question & Answer session after the presentation.

 

Participation in this webinar is completely free! All you need to do is register via the link below.

 

FPGA Development Board
Date: Thursday 18 October 2012
Time: 15:00 BST (16:00 CEST)
Presenter: Raymond Vermeulen and Jan Buiting (Elektor)
Language: English