Re: Best solution VGA+Ethernet+...

On 2 Dec 2003 09:42:21 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stoian Marius)
wrote:
>Hi all,
>I need to implement a solution(hw or sw) with support for all these:
>VGA+Ethernet+ac97+ps2+uart+epp+usb+processor core.
>
>I want to know which is the best solution (low costs) to implement
>this.
>I have the verilog code for all these but the synthesis gaves me a
>400kgates FPGA(which is expensive for my application).

It sounds like you're looking for a microcontroller, and there are
dozens of them.  IBM PowerPC 440, Intel's XScale (ARM), PMC-Sierra
MIPS chips are some of the higher-end ones, or if you don't need as
much processing power you could get lower end/cheaper chip, like one
of Motorola's rather extensive line.  If you need x86 compatibility,
there is AMD's Geode line of chips that are heavily integrated.

Of course, you need to figure out what sort of processor performance
requirements you need and what software you're going to run on the
chip.  There are a handful of common instruction sets (ARM, MIPS,
PowerPC, x86), as well as a bunch of less-common instruction sets.  If
you're software requires a particular instruction set than that is a
way to narrow down the field pretty quickly.  Other things like power
consumption and size constraints come into play as well.  And of
course there is ease of development, particularly if you're looking to
produce a relatively small (less than 1000?) number of units.  If
you're only planning on producing ~10 or fewer units, than you're
almost certainly better off simply going for a complete board with
everything on there.  Heck, a VIA mini-ITX or nano-ITX board would do
the trick.

Long story short, there are lots of options to fit a variety of
requirements and most important, there are lots of ways to measure
cost.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca