Hi, In my search for a good cortex M3 dev platform i found your site a very long time, but when i saw a plan for a mixture of arm cortex m3 with an fpga option awaiting in your to do list, i have decided to wait for it.
since then a very long time has gone and I'm still waiting for it.
last night i stumbled upon this fpga/cpld open source dev board which can be programed using an on-board USB plug and free software.
I think this can be a very good starting point for a mixed ARM CORTEX M3 and FPGA/CPLD mixed board, so here is the link: http://xess.com/prods/prod048.php
I hope to see some sort of a maple with fpga soon.
maple with fpga or a cpld
(9 posts) (6 voices)-
Shay
MemberPosted 4 years ago # -
gbulmer
ModeratorShay - Yes, I have been interested by the Xess stuff.
The Papilio is also interesting:
http://www.gadgetfactory.net/index.php?main_page=page&id=25&chapter=30Some of the work by VPRI:
http://www.vpri.org/
also offers evidence of interesting ways of programming FPGA technology.(full discolsure: I am not a member of LeafLabs staff)
Posted 4 years ago # -
You can start FPGA and STM32 development today. It depends on how you want to go about the task. For the Maple, I'd look at implementing SPI on the FPGA as an interface between the 2 devices. But a parallel interface is also very possible.
I've been thinking about creating a RC receiver measuring circuit and replace the OR chip currently on-board.
I've been looking at the Papilio and think I might get one when I can after I get a Maple Native.
Posted 4 years ago # -
poslathian
LeafLabsall good options. If you dont have high bandwidth needs, I would just wire a Maple to an FPGA over i2c/spi/serial, and you can get something in the 1-10Mb/s range. On Oak, we will be wiring the FPGA directly to the STM32s external memory interface, which will hopefully give us something closer to 100Mb/s (thats a target, not a promise). We are in the process of nailing down those sorts of performance specs right now on our prototypes.
Another interesting thing in FPGA land is https://www.boldport.com/ , an attempt to streamline the toolflow for FPGA from the command line. thanks bnewbold for the tip!
Posted 4 years ago # -
The other place to look at if you want interfaces/modules for FPGAs is: http://opencores.org/
Posted 4 years ago # -
Just saw this thread as I was looking at the Maple and found it intriguing. Another device to check out is the ÜberShield, http://ubershield.com, a *duino shield that I designed to address this exact scenario. It's a Xilinx FPGA that's fully interfaced to the duino bus, but also has 64 unconstrained I/O available for expansion. We've written scripts for a number of platforms to program the FPGA image into flash without having to use JTAG, and would be happy to take a look at doing one for the Maple if there's interest. The shield ships with a GPIO/PWM core that I wrote that allows the user to use all 64 pins as I/O and 32 of them as time-aligned PWM channels. That core interfaces to the *duino via SPI, and the SPI module it uses is openly available should you want to use it as a basis for the communications between Maple and your design.
Posted 4 years ago #
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