Need help to buy first FPGA board

fpga board buy

Hi everyone,
I am newbie in FPGA; recently I decide to buy a FPGA board to study.
I am considering two boards:

1. Virtex-4 MB (DS-KIT-4VLX60MB) with XC4VLX60
**broken link removed**

2. Virtex-4 ML405 Embedded Platform (HW-V4-ML405-US) with XC4VFX20
**broken link removed**

My main target is to demonstrate some base-band demodulation systems
(or part of it) such as Wireless LAN, and DSP. Easy-to-use and popular
interface to PC and other board are also important.

Several things that I am really confused here:
-Price: Board 1 is cheaper. Correct me if I wrong, board 1 use
standard RS-232 interface to console, while the kits from Xilinx using
PC platform cable (adding ~140USD).
-Performance: the different between LX and FX. Number of gates and
slices in board 1 is larger than that in board 2. However, board 2
equips the embedded micro-processor, which may be interesting for
studying and demonstrate.
- Both boards are supported by ISE?

My feeling is that board 2 is just "a kit" and would be nice for
studying and demo, while board 1 is more like "a development board".

Please point out other things I should consider. I really need your
opinions.
I really appreciate that.
Thanks in advance.

fpga slice is

Please tell me ur location.
then i can talk abt price.

Hi ankit12345
Recently, I am in Japan.

Please, help me

I would suggest Xilinx Spartan III. I have recently bought it from www.digilentinc.com. It costs about $100 to $115 (depending upon your country and shipping charges).

It has 200K gates. Connects to PC through Parallel Port. Has VGA and RS232 ports. Works with ISE.

Other FPGAs like the one you have mentioned may be better than that but i don't know much about them so can't compare them with Xilinx

Regards

What are slices? everyone is talking about it, but I don't know what it is... => Just starting to learn VHDL and FPGA's

Hi kaweezonderkap,
Your question belongs in a new discussion.

A slice is a small configurable logic block in a Xilinx FPGA. (Al.tera has similar blocks called Logic Elements or LEs.) Common FPGAs contain many thousands of slices. The internal details of a slice differ somewhat between different FPGA families, but each slice typically contains a tiny lookup table (LUT) that can be used as combinatorial logic or ROM or RAM, a flip-flop, some fast carry chain logic, and a few other useful configurable goodies. Most of your design will be automatically synthesized into numerous slices.

For all the gory details of what's inside a slice, refer to your specific FPGA User Guide.

After you place-and-route your design, you can use Xilinx ISE's "FPGA Editor" to examine the overall routing, and look inside the individual slices to see how they are configured.


If anyone is shopping for FPGA boards, here's a nice list:
https://www.fpga-faq.org/FPGA_Boards.shtml

Thanks for you reply
I'm going to check some user guides...

greetings!