SAM FPGA: Does anyone have any interesting ideas.

[RedskullDC]

Hi Sparky,

Sparky wrote:
....
It would be nice to know what tools would be provided to upload your own designs into the FPGA, but I'd bet money the software doesn't exist yet ... well maybe just bet $1 just in case ;-)

Sam440 uses a LatticeXP FPGA.
There is a free version (Windows) of the tools required to program one of these devices available from the Lattice website at:

http://www.latticesemi.com/products/designsoftware/isplever/ispleverstarter/index.cfm

Sam440 manual says that J9 is a JTAG connector for the FPGA, so you will need a Lattice flavoured download cable.

Haven't seen a schematic for the SAM board yet, so couldn't speculate much more at this point, though the manual does say there are 80 available I/Os on J4 which are connected to the FPGA.

Anyone have a link to a schematic?

Red

[RedskullDC]

Hi Moto,

motorollin wrote:
Would it be possible to programme it with a form of the Minimig software?
--
moto

Not with the LatticeXP chip on the board.

Did a bit of hunting and found this block diagram of the sam44ep:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/files/misc/acube_sam440ep_board_diag.gif

From the diagram you could say that:

1. It's only a small FPGA , bit hard to read but looks like a XP6C to me.
More info on the XP chips here:
http://www.latticesemi.com/products/fpga/xp/

1. The FPGA is isolated from much of the rest of the system, only seeming to have access to the local bus, eeprom, disk on chip, and smart media controller. (and CPU of course).

Red.

p.s Something like this:
http://www.xilinx.com/products/devkits/aes_v5fxt_evl30-avnet.htm

Could run the minimig software (using soft core 68k), and theoretically run a modded version of OS4.1 using the on board 440 processor core  ......