The Hardwarer has designed and built this open source FPGA starter kit -miniSpartan6, it is based on Papilio Pro and XuLA2:
It is designed around Spartan 6 chip from Xilinx and it has on board JTAG programmer based on FT2232D from FTDI.
The miniSpartan6 is built to combine the advantages of both Papilio Pro and XuLA2. It is breadboard friendly like XuLA2 and it has the features of Papilio Pro. In addition, it has on board LEDs and switches. This will help beginners immediately start their first projects without any need for shields or wires.
I have a board with TI DSP and FPGA, how can I put all C code into this board? Thx
You don’t program FPGA’s in C.
Try Verilog and VHDL. It’s a complete other way of thinking than C, C++ or any other CPU programming.
I mean the DSP coding is in C.
Look at the documentation for your board as it would be specific to the board. If there isn’t any then look at the documentation for the TI DSP and the FPGA. Your question isn’t related to this Spartan board beyond them both having a FPGA.
The killer question: can this FPGA emulate a Bus Pirate? Especially the 5V I/O tolerance?
I/O on the Spartan FPGA isn’t 5V tolerant. You can put in a current limiting resistor and use the internal clamping diodes if you’re careful but you can’t get 5V outputs without a voltage translation buffer.
As for whether it would be compatible with the Bus Pirate. In theory it could be but you’d need to write/find a compatible PIC core. Seems a lot of work to do when the Bus Pirate v3 is only $27 and the v4 is $37.
Actually, the Bus Pirate already uses a 4066 to buffer 5V logic. I was thinking a similar circuit [or level translator] would do the trick.
As for the core – there are PIC18 cores available. How many cores you can fit on an FPGA depends on the cores, and the FPGA itself. Would you like two Bus Pirates in a single case? Three?
Not to mention the built-in JTAG connection…
@Alan
The 4066 in the buspirate is not used as a buffer, it’s used to switch in the pullups. The reason it can handle 5V is that the digital i/o pins on that family of pic24 devices are tolerant of up to 6V (the pins with analog functions can handle significantly less though).
Yes.
$75 Mojo:
http://embeddedmicro.com/tutorials/the-mojo
Heh, just received mine yesterday. Hopefully I’ll have some time in the near future to play with my new toy. :)