Need help deciding which FPGA to buy from Nexys3 and Avnet Xilinx Spartan-6 LX16 E

[siddharthakala]

Hi,

I need help deciding which FPGA to buy. I am very confused between Nexys3 and Avnet Xilinx Spartan-6 LX16 Evaluation Kit?

I am a beginner, and would really appreciate any help.

The LX16 looks great to me, but dont really understand whats the catch here, I mean how can they offer an FPGA and a PSoc on a single device at such a cost. Are they very low end FPGAs/PSoC? Also, there is a note which says: Xilinx Platform Cable USB II is not included in the kit but can be purchased separately. Is it the same cable we use to program the device?

On the other hand, the Nexys3 device looks very straightforward, but i think it is very simple device and would not offer as much to learn as the LX16.

Please help me guys.

 

[mrflibble]

There seems to be no catch. Both boards have the same fpga. The Avnet board has a cypress psoc, the digilent board has a cypress mcu + ft232.

Both boards can be programmed over usb with the cable that's included. Both vendors supply a programming tool. Digilent also includes an impact plugin so you can program it use the ISE toolchain. I am not sure if the avnet also includes such a thing. And a quick glance at the avnet product page shows that the avprog utility is still windoze only.

So it depends a bit on if you're using windows or linux, if you want to play around with the psoc, and if you like LPC FMC or the VHDCI connector. That is assuming you can NOT get academic pricing for the nexys3. If you can get academic pricing, the choice is a no-brainer IMO. $225 vs $119, oh choices choices.

 

[siddharthakala]

Thanks a lot for the help.

I am not buying on academic pricing, otherwise it would have been easier .

The LX16 dosnt include the Cypress Miniprog3 debug kit as well.

Nexys3 doesnt mention MCU anywhere in the datasheet.

I dont really have much knowledge about LPC FMC or VHDCI, I believe they are both for high speed connections.

I am using windows so that is also not a problem. But I am still confused as to which one to buy, they both seem to be good and easy to use, good peripherals/interfaces (except that LX16 doesnt have any video interface like VGA, etc., but it comes with an add-on LCD module) on both, almost same price, etc.

Still confused, would go through both once again thoroughly and see which one I would like.

Thanks a lot for the advice.

 

[mrflibble]

Regarding the mcu on the nexys3 ... that's the bit they mention as "Digilent Adept USB port for power, programming & data transfers". That uses a CY7C68013A microcontroller from cypress.

LPC FMC or VHDCI, I believe they are both for high speed connections.

Yup. And as much as I like digilent boards, the design choice to go with VHDCI was crap IMO.

As for the confusion ... it really depends on what kind of projects you're planning to do. Both boards have something going for them.

Small things to consider are "how easy to use is the USB UART / ethernet" if you intend to use that. The FT232 on the nexys3 is easy from the driver point of view. Not sure what the situation is for the usb uart in the cypress psoc. Under windows 7 I wouldn't expect any problems, but it's worth checking if you care about the usb uart.

Also, the boards have different DRAM configurations, so if you plan on using that you may want to look into the details...

 

[siddharthakala]

Thanks for the advice.

I think I will go with Nexys3. It better suits my needs (as of now ).

Thanks again.