CPLD Starter questions

[chancs]

I am on a tight budget and want to learn more about CPLD (maybe FPGA later). Is there a good starter kit/dev board out there and which programmer should I buy.

So far I have only played around with ISE 14.7 and Quartus 18.1. Nothing fancy, just creates a project, few lines of codes and compile it. What I can tell is ISE seem to compile much faster and simpler to use.

[james_s]

I use ISE and Quartus and have come to like Quartus better in most ways, but they both have similar abilities. Lots of cheap CPLD boards available on ebay and other Chinese sellers. If you want something a bit more powerful, the Cyclone II "mini board" FPGA boards are widely available for around $15 including a USB programming adapter. These are rather old parts at this point but still adequate to do some fairly impressive things.

This for example: http://searle.hostei.com/grant/Multicomp/

[chancs]

The problem that I am having is I do not know which program is suitable. Definitely, I wouldn't be able to afford Xilinx or Altera official programmer. I know there are clones selling on eBay at a fraction of its price, but do they compatible with vendor's IDE? Or is that a programmer that can program both Xilinx and Altera?

[Ice-Tea]

The lines between CPLD and FPGA are really blurred nowadays. I'm not sure if it's worth making the distinction.

Quite a lot of FPGA dev boards have a USB interface that can program the device. Nice example:

https://tinyfpga.com/

(the BX version)

The papilio is another:

http://store.gadgetfactory.net/papilio-one-250k-low-cost-xilinx-fpga-dev-board/

Terasic has some great stuff as well, a bit more expensive but really nice and jam-packed:

https://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=218&No=1021

[amspire]

I learnt FPGA's on this board:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000126853309.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000126952717.html

It is an older Cyclone 1 chip but it is a very cheap board and it is pretty powerful.

I think the last development system that supported this chip is Altera Quartus 11 13.0sp1

[chancs]

The lines between CPLD and FPGA are really blurred nowadays. I'm not sure if it's worth making the distinction.

The reason I want to use CPLD instead of FPGA is that CPLD has non-volatile program memory, which is a must for my upcoming project. Also, CPLD usually cheaper.

[Ice-Tea]

Again, pretty blury. The Lattice parts I linked to have non-volitile config mem but are more like FPGA's. Likewise, the Intel/Altera MAX10 is a CPLD class device in name but has features that surpass FPGA's of the recent past.

So, well, ...

[james_s]

The clone Xilinx USB platform cables work fine and are under $40. The clone Altera Byte Blaster cables are under $5 and those work fine too.

Every FPGA dev board that I've owned has onboard config flash so the behavior is almost indistinguishable from a CPLD except you have the option of very fast programming which is volatile or somewhat slower programming of flash which is auto loaded when power is applied.

[rstofer]

Or you can just buy a more fully featured board that already includes a USB programmer for $40:

https://store.digilentinc.com/coolrunner-ii-cpld-starter-board-limited-time/

This works with ISE 14.7  If you have this installed and running, great.  If not, pay attention to the fact that the original version didn't run on Win 10.  Xilinx released a patched version that I have never used because there is a file renaming process that works for the original version.  Google is your friend here.

Having peripherals on the board is quite useful during development.  They are particularly handy for 'learning' projects.

[jmelson]

The problem that I am having is I do not know which program is suitable. Definitely, I wouldn't be able to afford Xilinx or Altera official programmer. I know there are clones selling on eBay at a fraction of its price, but do they compatible with vendor's IDE? Or is that a programmer that can program both Xilinx and Altera?

Digilent has a JTAG pod that is pretty cheap, but there are some issues getting the driver installed on the computer.  You can get a clone of the Xilinx USB JTAG port pretty cheap, and it works perfectly without fussing with drivers.  I prefer to run ise on Linux systems, it seems to work fine.  The same JTAG port works with CoolRunner II, XC95nnXL and various Xilinx FPGAs. 

Jon

[ebclr]

Most clones programers works since it's no that high tech what is inside the programmer, The rel ones ( very expensive ) have more protection, but all can program the device without a problem even the cheapest one can do that. I have a real one and clone one Xilinx programmer, and they do the same thing without any difference

[james_s]

Or you can just buy a more fully featured board that already includes a USB programmer for $40:

You can, although having the separate programmer is handy because you can use it with multiple boards. CPLD and FPGA use exactly the same programming hardware. The Altera ones (clone) are ridiculously cheap, I dunno why they're so much cheaper and simpler than the Xilinx equivalent, also clones.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-Altera-Usb-Blaster-Cable-For-CPLD-FPGA-NIOS-JTAG-Altera-Programmer-GM/262136733505?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Xilinx-Platform-USB-Download-Cable-Jtag-Programmer-for-FPGA-CPLD-C-Mod-XC2C64A/111530220015?

I have both and they work fine.