I don't know if this is quite on-topic here but... has anyone tried one of the cheap EP2C5T144 Cyclone II FPGA breakout boards sold on by "yourlab" on ebay for $30? seems like a good value, if it works...
the item listing claims that the PCB BOM includes:
EP2C5T144C8 Cyclone II Family, 1.2V FPGA, 89 I/O Pins, 2 PLLs, 144-Pin TQFP
EPCS4SI8 EPCS4 Series, In-system prog 3.3V serial config device, 8-Pin SOIC, 4-Megabit
ASM1117-1.2 Three-Terminal Adjustable Output Positive Voltage Regulator
ASM1085CT-3.3 Three-Terminal Adjustable Output Positive Voltage Regulator
I don't know anything about the specific FPGA, it could be underpowered or sparse in resources, but the package looks like a simple but complete dev-board. FPGA dev-boards tend to be pretty cheap, I always get them from Digilent in about the same price range, maybe $10 more.
[quote author="ian"] FPGA dev-boards tend to be pretty cheap, I always get them from Digilent in about the same price range, maybe $10 more.[/quote]
Hmm, does Digilent have anything in FPGA cheaper than $80 for the BASYS2 (assuming no student discount)?
This is the cheapest FPGA dev board I saw from them: http://digilentinc.com/Products/Detail. ... rod=BASYS2 (http://digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,790&Prod=BASYS2)
Not saying it isn't worth the price, as it has more features, but I just didn't see they had any basic breakout boards for FPGA. (They do have a basic Coolrunner II CPLD breakout, which is still a few bucks more than yours :-)
I'm sorry, I don't follow what they currently stock, I've jsut used them in the past for cheap dev-board + debugger cables. They may be much more expensive now.