[Henry]

I'm looking for some suggestions/recommendations with CPLD's and development
software.



I'm new to CPLD's and a couple projects of mine will involve redesigning
existing "though hole" hardware using a CPLD. I've researching some Xilinx
products, and believe the 9500 series will do everything I need, as my needs
really aren't that great. My only issue with the ISE software is I need to
recreate all the TTL IC logic from scratch, which will prove to be very time
consuming. I was hoping to find a design package that would already have
existing "groups" of TTL logic designed so I won't have to take as much time
with the schematic design and layout. For example in ISE it took me about
15 minutes just to draw the logic to a 74LS245. Only took me 3 minutes to
"wire" it up.



Any recommendations on other companies, other software and your experiences
with them would be appreciated.



Thanks for your time.





Henry

GSE-Reactive.com

My email is listed on the site if you wish to contact me directly.

 

[Andrew Holme]

I'm looking for some suggestions/recommendations with CPLD's and
development software.



I'm new to CPLD's and a couple projects of mine will involve
redesigning existing "though hole" hardware using a CPLD. I've
researching some Xilinx products, and believe the 9500 series will do
everything I need, as my needs really aren't that great. My only
issue with the ISE software is I need to recreate all the TTL IC
logic from scratch, which will prove to be very time consuming. I
was hoping to find a design package that would already have existing
"groups" of TTL logic designed so I won't have to take as much time
with the schematic design and layout. For example in ISE it took me
about 15 minutes just to draw the logic to a 74LS245. Only took me 3
minutes to "wire" it up.



Any recommendations on other companies, other software and your
experiences with them would be appreciated.

I can recommend Altera's Quartus software, which has libraries for 7400
series parts.

 

[PeteS]

Although it's possible to do things in ISE with schematics, you would
probably be far better off using Verilog or VHDL.

i.e. specify the behaviour of the circuit rather than try to directly
emulate existing TTL.

Cheers

PeteS

 

[Ken Smith]

I'm new to CPLD's and a couple projects of mine will involve redesigning
existing "though hole" hardware using a CPLD. I've researching some Xilinx
products, and believe the 9500 series will do everything I need, as my needs
really aren't that great. My only issue with the ISE software is I need to
recreate all the TTL IC logic from scratch,

I'd suggest that you learn VHDL and descibe what the whole thing is
supposed to do in VHDL. It is likely to be no faster on this project
because it will include the learning time but on the next project it will
save you a bunch of time.

The other thought is why not just make it SMT versions of the thru-hole
stuff? .. or how about using a couple of 22V10s

[...]

Any recommendations on other companies, other software and your experiences
with them would be appreciated.

Cypress's development tools are less nasty than Xilinx's.

Altera's Quartus, at last report, had a few bugs but works well enough.

 

[Paul Burke]

Cypress's development tools are less nasty than Xilinx's.

Altera's Quartus, at last report, had a few bugs but works well enough.

I'm not naming names, but the one that's in front of me at the moment is
so bad as to be quite funny, when I stop chewing the carpet.

They all seem to be a ragbag of odds and sods, carefully designed to
hang when you're in a hurry, and make you jump through nearly as many
hoops as VHDL does.

Still, I didn't pay much for it, and it's not open source, so I can't
complain.

Paul Burke

 

[Ken Smith]

Still, I didn't pay much for it, and it's not open source, so I can't
complain.

Yes, you can complain. It just won't do you any bloody good.

 

[Rich Grise]

I'm looking for some suggestions/recommendations with CPLD's and development
software.

I'm new to CPLD's and a couple projects of mine will involve redesigning
existing "though hole" hardware using a CPLD. I've researching some Xilinx
products, and believe the 9500 series will do everything I need, as my needs
really aren't that great. My only issue with the ISE software is I need to
recreate all the TTL IC logic from scratch, which will prove to be very time
consuming. I was hoping to find a design package that would already have
existing "groups" of TTL logic designed so I won't have to take as much time
with the schematic design and layout. For example in ISE it took me about
15 minutes just to draw the logic to a 74LS245. Only took me 3 minutes to
"wire" it up.

Then you're missing something. True, the Xilinx library isn't listed in
terms of 74XX TTL, but all of the functions are there. Lessee - I've got
a schematic up on the other computer right now ... In schematic design
mode, the symbol library has 13 categories: Arithmetic, Buffer,
Comparator, Counter, Decoder, Flip_Flop, General, IO, Latch, Mux,
Shift_Register, and Shifter. Under "buffer", for example, there's
buf, buf16, buf4, buf8, bufe, bufe16, and so on a total of 15 different
variations on "buffer". You'd have to pop it up and look at the symbols
(or maybe RTFM) to figure out which function you need in a particular
place.

They also have some excellent tutorials, e.g.:
http://www.xilinx.com/support/techsup/tutorials/tutorials7.htm

Good Luck!
Rich