[INDIA] CPLDs in Bangalore

[roadkill]

Hi,

Could someone point me to where I might find CPLDs in small quantities in Bangalore? I'd prefer Xilinx, but can make do with Altera or any other company's stuff as long as it's re-programmable (ie, not OTP)

Thanks!

[tcpip]

Originally posted by roadkill
...CPLDs in small quantities

In audio? What are you doing with them?

[ClassD]

Originally posted by tcpip
In audio? What are you doing with them?

DSP

[roadkill]

No, actually, I don't exactly need it for audio work, I didn't know where else to ask. I wanted to try and build a high-speed (50 MHz) sampler, which I plan to use as a DSO. I could use an MCU for generating the sampler control signals, but it wouldn't be fast enough. Besides this, CPLDs are highly useful for a whole bunch of stuff, including routing of serial audio among multiple processors.

BTW, I'm open to using Cypress chips too, since they have free development tools.

[ClassD]

Ohh ok. I really don't like using FPGA. Do you program them in VHDL?

[ashwin]

Hi roadkill,
did you manage to find CPLDs in B'lore? Even I'm thinking of playing with them

- Ashwin

[roadkill]

No, not found any yet. I did find one interesting thing, though: at Vishal Electronics, he had a brown cardboard box labeled "CPLD/FPGA programmer"... hmmm... if they sell programmers, someone ought to have the chips! Anyway, I was in a hurry that day so I didn't enquire further.

And yes, I do program FPGAs in VHDL at work. Big beefy Xilinx Virtex-IIs, with equivalent gate counts of 4 million

[ashwin]

Originally posted by roadkill
No, not found any yet. I did find one interesting thing, though: at Vishal Electronics, he had a brown cardboard box labeled "CPLD/FPGA programmer"... hmmm... if they sell programmers, someone ought to have the chips! Anyway, I was in a hurry that day so I didn't enquire further.

And yes, I do program FPGAs in VHDL at work. Big beefy Xilinx Virtex-IIs, with equivalent gate counts of 4 million

Well, so do I! After playing with Virtex-IIs at work, I feel so powerless at home

What I was interested in trying is making clones of classic 8-bit chips like 6502, 6522 and 6845, and then maybe making a clone of the BBC micro 8-bit microcomputer I actually saw a website where a guy had put most of the circuitry of the BBC micro into an FPGA.

- Ashwin

[ajju]

First question..
why do u need CPLD's. They dont come cheap compared to the FPGA's Only advantage being they
need not be initilaised every time on power up (as u alll know), On the flip side accomodates less logic compared to an equivalently priced FPGA. And they can blow up pretty fast..I've used couple of CPLD's the MACH M4 64/32 etc from latttice. The M4 device, if i remember correctly was around 3000+ INR ..that is around 3yrs back
FPGA's are cool if u dont need high utilisation.other wise they s**k.One of the teams had done a design and fitted it into a vertex device with an utilisation of 95-97%..sounds impossible..but was done...! A lot of sweat...!!

Roadkill, the cardboard box that u saw, might be one like the xillinx Xchecker cables...
used for programming CPLD's/FPGA's through jtag or similar interface. I dont think its a dedicated programmer, the one with which u can burn the init ROMs etc for ur FPGA's etc..!
I think i've seen some posters of Altera devices somewhere on sp road..?
did u enquire at universall..or at that huge shop opp chandan etc..!!


Ok now moving on to the sampler..!!
what exactly is on your mind..?
Is it just some kind of a data acquisition system that can be hooked on to ur PC or something similar..? You said DSO..! so how do u plan to implement it.? Displays..controls etc..
including the analog front end with those precision instrumentation..ADC etc etc...
wow should be quite interesting..

I had plans of using an FPGA to implement two things...

1) a simple matrix decoder..(the delay lines are a bit too difficult to get in analog)
2) some kind of adaptive room optimisation...may be start of with a couple of parametric
equilizers with keypad data entry and a basic alphanumeric display.

all of us being frm blr..proly we can join hands and do something interesting...
what say..!!

ajju

PS: is it possible that all of us are working at the same place but we dont know each other..?? :-?. Looking at the kind of work i get some serious doubts..!!

[ashwin]

Originally posted by ajju
First question..
why do u need CPLD's. They dont come cheap compared to the FPGA's

Well, looking at RS prices, the CPLDs seem much more affordable than FPGAs. And for a DIYer, the main advantage is that the Altera ones are still available in PLCC packages (Xilinx I believe has discontinued its PLCC packages, not sure about this though)

Only advantage being they
need not be initilaised every time on power up (as u alll know), On the flip side accomodates less logic compared to an equivalently priced FPGA. And they can blow up pretty fast..I've used couple of CPLD's the MACH M4 64/32 etc from latttice. The M4 device, if i remember correctly was around 3000+ INR ..that is around 3yrs back
FPGA's are cool if u dont need high utilisation.other wise they s**k.One of the teams had done a design and fitted it into a vertex device with an utilisation of 95-97%..sounds impossible..but was done...! A lot of sweat...!!

If you need a lot of registers, then CPLDs simply cannot deliver, especially the PLCC packeged ones I mentioned above, because they have a smaller number of registers. One interesting possibility is to use PICs or AVRs as logic devices With software doing the logic operation. Dunno about AVRs but PICs have an interrupt-on-port-pin-change which will be very useful for this sort of thing. Microchip has an app note on this on their site.

did u enquire at universall..or at that huge shop opp chandan etc..!!

Actually I saw some Altera devices in Vishal's display case, but I don't know if he actually sold them

PS: is it possible that all of us are working at the same place but we dont know each other..?? :-?. Looking at the kind of work i get some serious doubts..!!

Well, I know for a fact that you and I work for the same company
Your house-mate Anith sits next to me

- Ashwin