I asked a question on the topic of FPGA awhile back and got some good  
pointers.  I now have an Altera Cyclone III Starter Kit from Digikey  
and have gone through the first tutorial, so I have the hardware  
working.  Now it's onto some of the real questions, which echo the  
OP's I think.  Where can I go to learn about both the design  
principles as well as the PCB and programmer requirements to  
incorporate these devices into my own designs?  Can anyone recommend a  
good book or two or some websites to start digging deeper into the  
subject?

Thanks as always,
-n.



On Feb 19, 2008, at 2:38 PM, Herbert Graf wrote:

>
> On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 12:44 -0500, Dro Kulix wrote:
>> - Can I assume that the components of an FPGA setup are no more than
>> synthesis software (VHDL or Verilog), a sort of hardware programmer  
>> (or
>> analogue thereof--what would it be called?), and a
>> breakout/demonstration board with an in-circuit programming header?
>
> Pretty much. Depending on how you plan to do things add a SIM to the
> mix. It's always best to put your code through sim before going to the
> real device.
>
> Once in the real device either a logic analyzer or one of the "include
> in your code" LA solutions (i.e. Identify or ChipScope) may be
> necessary, it depends on how complex your design is, how fast you want
> to go, etc.
>
> Personally I try to do things in such a way that I only need to pull  
> out
> the logic analyzer for those really nitty gritty problems.
>
>> - Any recommendations on which of the above would be the cheapest  
>> with
>> which to start out?  For a given product, assuming nothing except the
>> equipment already necessary to work with PICs and other simple
>> circuitry, what would be a minimal BOM for getting anything  
>> coherent out
>> of the FPGA?
>
> There are many dev boards out there, choosing one is really up to what
> you want to do. The thing that does annoy me is they pretty much all
> have the programming hardware on board. The problem with this is you
> still need to get a programming cable when you want to do other  
> things,
> and those can be pricey.
>
> I do recommend staying away from the "simple" home made programming
> cables, the same issues that make them glitchy for PICs exist here.
>
>> - Is there a significant presence of FOSS and/or Linux-compatible
>> synthesis and burning software?
>
> Absolutely. Many of the tools work on Linux (and in my experience are
> usually slightly faster on Linux).
>
> TTYL
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