On Tuesday 11 September 2007 15:57:03 Joshua Shriver wrote:
> I've been reading more on VHDL.  Anyone know of a place that can take
> a VHDL program and generate hardware based on it, at a reasonable
> price? (academic level) not for a business and in low quantities

You will first need to convert the VHDL design into a gate-level netlist 
through a process called "synthesis". Once this is done, the netlist can be 
turned into hardware.

The cheapest way of doing it would be to use a programmable FPGA. There are 
many FPGA prototyping boards that you can buy online from around US$ 100. 
FPGA chips themselves can be bought from around US$ 10. If you intend to use 
it for a classroom, this might be the best way to do it. The FPGA vendors 
also provide their own synthesis tools.

If you wish to fabricate an actual ASIC, you may be able to get access to some 
discounted tape-out runs if you're an academic institution. Depending on the 
size of the design and the process chosen, this may be from around US$ 1,000. 
You will need proper EDA tools (Mentor, Synopsys, Cadence) and they usually 
provide an academic discount. I wouldn't recommend this for classroom 
purposes.

Cheers.

-- 
with metta,
Shawn Tan

Aeste Works (M) Sdn Bhd - Engineering Elegance
http://www.aeste.net
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