For making my own circuit boards reasons I researched the same subject concentrating on only 'hand solderable' parts... I also like the Altera cyclone they are sold in digikey for as little as 20$ for a EP1C06 But recently i have been eying the Actel chips that have ADC inputs and also cypress seems to be coming out with those type of chips... I really don't understand what is taking them so long to figure out that ADC inputs will open up a huge market So now if somebody knows low quantity pricing on the Actel or new Cypress parts I am really curious! On 1/28/07, Forrest W. Christian wrote: > > Paul Anderson wrote: > > >Does anyone know of FPGAs that one could start experimenting with, > >without having to lay out $100+ for the hardware to program them? I'd > >love to have a chance to play with them, but alas, I am poor and > >cannot afford the hardware I've seen around. > > > > > I've been playing a bit with the MachXO products. Not exactly a FPGA, > and not exactly a CPLD. Somewhere in between. But if you're just > wanting to play with something FPGA-like it might be a good choice. > > The MachXO products don't really have the complexity internally that a > FPGA has in the number of gates and the like. The real problem I had > with most FPGA's is that you have to put the FPGA on board, and then you > also need FLASH to configure the FPGA as well. And usually, I'm not > needing many gates internally at all, since I really want to use them > for glue or a high speed counter/capture or something similar which a > PIC doesn't do well. > > The MachXO is large enough to handle reasonably large designs, is a > Flash based part, and is cheap ($10 each Qty1 for the smallest size, a > lot less in quantity). > > They have a hardware eval board for their 256 part for $99. They also > have one for their larger parts as well, for about $250 or so. > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- ----- Tobias Gogolin cel. (646) 124 32 82 skype: moontogo messenger: usertogo@hotmail.com -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist