SparkFun Forums

[WickedMinds]

I have decided to get into FPGAs because my designs for glue logic alone are getting very large and a pain to breadboard. I have been learning and working with WebPack ISE and I am ready to get a dev board to start trying out my designs.

I looked at Papilio which seems to have a great arrangement for the I/O pins but from what I have read is not directly programmable with WebPack ISE.

On the other hand the Spartan 3E Breakout and Development Board + the Xilinx FPGA Parallel Programmer combo looks like it will program directly from WebPack ISE but the I/O pins are all over the place.

The cost is not a deciding factor. Can anyone who has used WebPack ISE and either of these boards relate any programming issues or issues with pins that are broken out on each board?

I don't want to get a board only to find the pins I need aren't broken out or is difficult to program.

Thanks!

P.S. Most of my designs involve 8bit parallel data, which is why I am concerned about pin location.

[langwadt]

for glue logic a cpld might be better suited than an fpga it is instant on and doesn't need the external flash (most) fpga need.
unless the fpga is very full and/or you are running extremly fast I don't see why pin location is a big issue they are are to a large extend
"all the same"