PCI with FPGA spartan 3 or 6

[amin5659]

hi all.
I want to design a PCI card(no pcie) with spartan 3 or 6 for my bachelor project.
but i have no idea about that
can any one guide me about desining that with altium and ics that i have to use and ....
i accept any advise about topic!because i know nothing..!(i just know what pci is).
thanks

 

[dpaul]

hi all.
I want to design a PCI card(no pcie) with spartan 3 or 6 for my bachelor project.

Spartan 3/6 are FPGA devices which can be used to implement a design.

can any one guide me about desining that with altium and ics that i have to use and .....

Altium is used for PCB designing.

PCI is a 64-bit bus, though it is usually implemented as a 32-bit bus. It can run at clock speeds of 33 or 66 MHz. At 32 bits and 33 MHz, it yields a throughput rate of 133 MBps.

So your question doesn't seem coherent to me. Do you want to design a PCB or a design unit on FPGA that has PCI interface.

 

[amin5659]

thank you for replying
actually both.!
first of all i have to design a PCB for PCI card with altuim or ...
and then Design unit for PCI interface.

 

[dpaul]

For PCB designing you should refer to the forum - "Hardware and PCB Design"
For the FPGA implementation part you are in the correct forum.

In my opinion in is better to begin with the design unit and its FPGA implementation. If it is working in FPGA as you expect it to be, then move on to its PCB designing. Because it would be meaningless to design a PCB for a non-existent hardware/design unit.

 

[amin5659]

thanks.
so for designing its unit is that exist as a core or am i have to write that???
is that difficult?
how can i start knowing that???

 

[dpaul]

If you can find a core that is freely available then your work is reduced.
Else you have to develop your own. Whatever be the case, in have to understand PCI in depth. So start by reading and understanding the spec. in detail.
Look into OpenCores for PCI/PCIe. Else some FPGA vendors also do provide PCI cores (e.g- Xilinx has a PCIe core and most probably can be generated by the CoreGen/XPS flow).

 

[matrixofdynamism]

Could you tell what the PCIe device is supposed to be doing?

 

[ads-ee]

Could you tell what the PCIe device is supposed to be doing?

The OP is specifically NOT looking at using PCIe, but is instead looking at using PCI (the standard 33 MHz 32-bit bus).

Opencores has a PCI core that I've been told is well documented (for something on Opencores) by a colleague. Mostly the main issue is making sure the I/O of the device you plan on using meets the PCI spec. I think both the Spartan 3/6 are compatible (Some families of Cyclone parts require you use 3.0V instead of 3.3V to power the I/O due to overshoot specs, don't recall the exact details). Timing shouldn't be all that hard to meet on a Spartan 6, don't have experience with a Spartan 3 never used them before.