Small FPGA recommendation

[asmi]

Icecube2 is anything but. You get a way to select the chip, I/O standards and pinout, but that's about it. Under the hood it's running Synplify Pro, but you don't have to touch it.

It gives you a choice of either using Synplify, or Lattice's own sythesizer.

The obvious omission - unless I've just not found it yet - is something equivalent to the Mega Wizard configuration tool for any built-in hardware blocks. Instantiating memory, for example, looks as though it requires either some specific, carefully crafted VHDL to be generated by hand and pasted into the source code, or alternatively, writing an accurate functional description of the behaviour of a memory block and hoping the synthesizer chooses to infer one.

There are wizards to instantiate PLL and hardened SPI/I2C blocks for devices that have them. Also there is SBT_ICE_Technology_Library.pdf file in Icecube's "doc" folder which lists and describes all built-in primitives, but FIFO is not listed there as it's not natively supported (you've got to use some LCB resources to construct FIFO from sysMEM blocks).

[ebclr]

Max II can be a simple and cheap solution, no flash no nothing, only a lot of gates to be used, for a adder and much more

Also very cheap development board

https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-1pc-Altera-CPLD-MAXii-EPM570t144-development-board-core-board-minimum-system-board/1399822831.html?ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_1_10152_10065_10151_10068_10130_10344_10345_10547_10342_10343_10340_5620011_10341_10548_10545_10541_10307_10060_5700011_10155_5640011_10154_5370011_10056_10055_10539_10538_10537_10536_10059_10534_10533_100031_10103_10102_10142_10107_5760011_10324_10084_10083_10178_10312_10313_10314_5750011_10073_5630011,searchweb201603_25,ppcSwitch_5&btsid=aaf650b2-87f9-49cc-a8a7-f78eb08ee9bd&algo_expid=57b243c7-279a-4879-8a7a-04f123c51bc9-1&algo_pvid=57b243c7-279a-4879-8a7a-04f123c51bc9

[asmi]

Max II can be a simple and cheap solution, no flash no nothing, only a lot of gates to be used, for a adder and much more

Also very cheap development board

https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-1pc-Altera-CPLD-MAXii-EPM570t144-development-board-core-board-minimum-system-board/1399822831.html?ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_1_10152_10065_10151_10068_10130_10344_10345_10547_10342_10343_10340_5620011_10341_10548_10545_10541_10307_10060_5700011_10155_5640011_10154_5370011_10056_10055_10539_10538_10537_10536_10059_10534_10533_100031_10103_10102_10142_10107_5760011_10324_10084_10083_10178_10312_10313_10314_5750011_10073_5630011,searchweb201603_25,ppcSwitch_5&btsid=aaf650b2-87f9-49cc-a8a7-f78eb08ee9bd&algo_expid=57b243c7-279a-4879-8a7a-04f123c51bc9-1&algo_pvid=57b243c7-279a-4879-8a7a-04f123c51bc9

You mean "fake Max II", right? Because genuine ones with comparable logic resources to ice40 will be more expensive.

[Mr. Scram]

You mean "fake Max II", right? Because genuine ones with comparable logic resources to ice40 will be more expensive.

As a seller I bought an Altera device from said: "Who would fake these?"

Apparently Chinese do, considering my unit came with a Cyclone II model number and Cyclone III logo It works perfectly fine as the Cyclone II denoted, and I actually bought it as such, so it's all good. It's not going into anything relevant anyway.

[asmi]

Apparently Chinese do, considering my unit came with a Cyclone II model number and Cyclone III logo It works perfectly fine as the Cyclone II denoted, and I actually bought it as such, so it's all good. It's not going into anything relevant anyway.

Maybe they do work, but I prefer not to use illegal copies if I can help it.

[Mr. Scram]

Maybe they do work, but I prefer not to use illegal copies if I can help it.

I do too.

[ebclr]

Again those "fake" fools,    Pay more for the supposed to be "original" and lets us play with the supposed to be fake, perfect working, perfectly reliable.

It's amazing but history is made a huge change, the US  is now the Police state, with regulations even to "drop a pun", more lawyers than engineers, while China is the real capitalism and freedom, there everything is doable, fakes reals, high quality, low quality, no restrictions of any kind,  no control off nothing just pure Market law and freedom.

[jmelson]

Hi all,

I have a design which requires a small FPGA, and I'm struggling to find an appropriate device.

Since nobody else mentioned this, there is also the Xilinx XC9500XL series, based on CPLD technology.  You can get the XC9536XL in the 44-pin package for $1.54 in single quantity.  This sounds like it might be too small for your application, they have larger devices.  These have 36-input gates, so the way things map out is quite different from the finer-grained FPGA LUT architecture.  Where comparing larger numbers of bits is required (like address decoders) they are great.

Xiling also has the Cool Runner II family, with an internal architecture more similar to FPGAs.  The XC2C family also are quite affordable in the smaller sizes, under $2.

Jon

[asmi]

Again those "fake" fools,    Pay more for the supposed to be "original" and lets us play with the supposed to be fake, perfect working, perfectly reliable.

It's amazing but history is made a huge change, the US  is now the Police state, with regulations even to "drop a pun", more lawyers than engineers, while China is the real capitalism and freedom, there everything is doable, fakes reals, high quality, low quality, no restrictions of any kind,  no control off nothing just pure Market law and freedom.

Don't worry kido, just give it some time until you grow up and one day find yourself on the receiving end of all this. Will see what you will say at that time...

[james_s]

Can't be a copy. The R&D cost for FPGAs is too high to make any profit. It's more likely to be a recycled part, the recycler removed the chip from board, and reprinted the markings to make it look like new.

Which is weird, because I'm perfectly content to buy recycled parts for hobby projects, I certainly trust them more than sketchy re-marked stuff!