Board Level Design

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xfpgas

Joined: 10 Apr 2003
Posts: 25

27 Nov 2003 18:04 Board Level Design

I was wondering if anyone out there doing this stuff can tell me

1) What skills are required for am FPGA board level design

2) What tools?

3) whats the neccesary background?

I am quite comfortable with the Chip Level Design for FPGAs. I would like to get into board level design, or atleast thats where I see myself going.
Any helpful suggestions would be very appreciated

Thanks
Kode

neerajs

Joined: 21 Nov 2003
Posts: 29
Helped: 1

27 Nov 2003 18:52 Re: Board Level Design

FPGAs are an important part of today's PCBs and so you can have an edge to some extent if you have an FPGA background.. There are many other aspects of PCB design which you will learn as you explore and experiment. There are many things to do in PCB design.. You can grow in one or more of Front End (Schematics or Backend (Layout) , Signal Integrity and many subdomains lot more.

Most common PCB design tools these days are tools from Mentor Graphics and Cadence (including ORCAD). See websites of these companies ..

Background : Willingness to learn....
Start with a google search on PCB design..

it_boy

Joined: 18 Jul 2002
Posts: 181
Helped: 4

28 Nov 2003 4:25 Re: Board Level Design

There's a lot of difference between FPGA designs and board level designs. As neerajs says, Signal Integrity is a very important domain which never comes into picture during FPGA designs.
Are you planning to concentrate on the front end design or the PCB design? In either case I recommend you to start with OrCAD to start with. I recommend you to study "High speed Digital design, a handbook of black magic" by Howard W. Johnson and Martin Grahan by Prentice Hall if you want to learn about SI.

Best of luck,
it_boy

az25

Joined: 18 May 2001
Posts: 59
Location: USA

28 Nov 2003 7:48 Re: Board Level Design

Skills Needed for designing FPGA:

- Verilog or VHDL coding
- Undersand or know how to use tools such as Modelsim, Xilinx, Altera and etc ...
- Digital Logic Design
- PCB layout
- High Speed Board Design

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delay

Joined: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 219
Helped: 3
Location: Van Allen Belt

07 Jul 2004 17:55 Re: Board Level Design

If you have previously designed and tested boards you do have hardware inclination then, FPGA design will be easier for you. All you need is to learn an HDL.