Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] $89 EZ-USB 2.0 FX2 devel board

[Eric Blossom]

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 07:27:59PM -0500, David Carr wrote:
> Eric et al,
> 
> I'll keep you guys posted on my progress. I should have the hardware in 
> about 2 weeks. In the meantime I'm developing the ADC module to plug 
> into the USB board....
> 
> Last thing I promise. I'd also like to add an inexpensive fpga module to 
> this system. I've not designed anything with FPGA's before. What FPGA's 
> have specs in the right ballpark but are not that expensive (<$30-40)? 

The standard engineering answer: It depends.

I depends on how much i/o you'll need, how many logic cells, speed,
multipliers, memory, etc, etc.  The Altera "Cyclone" EP1C12Q240C8 that
we're using goes for about $60 in small qty.  It's in a 240 pin PQFP
package.

> I'm biased towards Xilinx parts because they officially support their 
> tools under wine on linux. What are the details on the part used on the 
> USRP?

I tried the free Xilinx tools under wine and couldn't get them to
work.  Of course it was my first time messing with wine, so I could
have been missing a clue or two.  Let me know if you get them to work
and what it takes.

We're using the free (beer) Altera tools, but we have to run them
under that other OS.  FWIW, my setup is a GNU/Linux host running
vmware workstation 4.x with win2k pro as a guest.  Not the cheapest
seats in the house, but it sure beats dual booting...

> Thanks again,
> David Carr

Eric