Hi all,
I need to prototype some ASIC designs and I'm looking for
advice on type of FPGA and on FPGA board as well (to buy one
or alternatively to make one on my own).
The FPGA should be capable of the equivalent of about 100K
to 500K ASIC logic gates (being 300K a good estimate).
But this is the least important point, since every family of
FPGAs comes in various gate counts.
What I really care most is to choose the right FPGA family
since the start.
Clock speed is not critically important, but it should not
be lower than 50 MHz anyway.
I'd like to match the FPGA design to the ASIC one as closely
as possible, so I'm ruling out any FPGA that for its performance
depends too much on some "original features".
Sure, I don't pretend a FPGA with only 2-inputs NAND gates per
cell and millions of freely routable cells.. but something as
close as possible to an ASIC, because it will all end up on a
ASIC anyway sooner or later, and I don't want the FPGA and the
ASIC to be too much different each other, so to force me to
find completely different solutions. I can sacrifice FPGA speed,
but not to an extreme point. Hence, I'm looking for the most
"ASIC-like" FPGA.
[snip]
Now the sad part: I am on very low budget. This is a hobbyst
project for me, but I think I have a very innovative and valid
design in mind. I do not want to be ripped off, so I want to try
it myself. I will enjoy doing so anyway, and time is not a big
problem (I have some free time to invest on it). I have no
digital electronics degree, although I'd say I'm very, very
experienced assembly programmer (various 8..64 bit CPU's, DSPs
and microcontrollers) and with a long experience in digital
electronics as a self taught hobbist (no previous FPGA direct
experience though!).
As I said I've some rather interesting/innovative/original
design/concept to develop and test, and the only viable way
will be a FPGA. But which one? You certainly know much better
than me!
Once the design, on the FPGA, should prove its validity, I'd
move on to look for investors and some ASIC engineer for the
real thing.