possible to make a FPGA cloning.the pi system?

[lilzz]

Opencores.org has a lot of
IPs. I am thinking getting a FPGA chip with embedded
Dram and Flash. Maybe this way is going tgoin to be even cheaper..v

[ghans]

Er , no.
First , FPGA boards cost at least the double of a Pi.
Secondly , the GPU is secret and AFAIK there aren't many
free ARM cores around either because ARM Ltd. would sue
you into oblivion if you tried to distribute one.

The only thing i could find were ARMv3 designs - state-of-the-art
of the 1990s .

ghans

[ShiftPlusOne]

Even if the GPU was fully open, I can't begin to imagine what the FPGA to run it would cost and how much heat it would give off. I almost suspect it would need to be a rack of FPGA boards costing more than any sensible person would invest for this purpose.

[jdb]

Even if the GPU was fully open, I can't begin to imagine what the FPGA to run it would cost and how much heat it would give off. I almost suspect it would need to be a rack of FPGA boards costing more than any sensible person would invest for this purpose.

I am reliably informed that the FPGA setup used to simulate just *parts* of the SoC is approximately the size of a domestic fridge. There are a lot of chips inside.

[GTR2Fan]

I am reliably informed that the FPGA setup used to simulate just *parts* of the SoC is approximately the size of a domestic fridge. There are a lot of chips inside.

Frozen chips?

[jamesh]

The guy sitting opposite me has a FPGA for chip development. It is indeed the size of a small fridge, and only has the capacity to emulate part of the chip that is being developed. I believe they cost about $200k or thereabouts.

The ones that can emulate an entire (admittedly state of the art as of now) SoC cost $1m or more and are considerably larger. It all down to the number of gates you need to emulate, and modern SoC's have millions upon millions of them.

They also run considerably slower than the native devices - by orders of magnitude.

That's why you use the real article in product. FPGA's are great for development, hopeless for the real world (at least in this market - they certainly have uses where speed and cost is not so important)

[ShiftPlusOne]

I thought I was exaggerating, since my experience with FPGAs doesn't go much beyond implementing simple state machines and ALUs for the hell of it years ago.

If BCM doesn't mind, could you by any chance snap a photo of it? I think it would be interesting.

[jamesh]

I thought I was exaggerating, since my experience with FPGAs doesn't go much beyond implementing simple state machines and ALUs for the hell of it years ago.

If BCM doesn't mind, could you by any chance snap a photo of it? I think it would be interesting.

I'll ask around - I think we buy them in but I am not sure. They may be custom in which case a photo may be pushing it!

EDIT: Do a search for HAPS FPGA to get an idea of what is involved.

[ShiftPlusOne]

I'll ask around - I think we buy them in but I am not sure. They may be custom in which case a photo may be pushing it!

EDIT: Do a search for HAPS FPGA to get an idea of what is involved.

Thanks, James!

If anybody is interested (probably not), this is what one of the HAPS FPGAs looks like (on the left):

[jamesh]

We have our FGPA systems in fridge like wheeled rack boxes. Hugely expensive! Even more expensive are things like Cadence Palladium II - 2.2 billion gates FPGA systems. Not sure of exact cost but perhaps in the millions.

[ShiftPlusOne]

Wouldn't want to be the guy to spill a coffee in one of those.

[Ravenous]

Wouldn't want to be the guy to spill a coffee in one of those.

I would! Just once, to see what it feels like!

(only kidding, really!)

[jbeale]

...AFAIK there aren't many free ARM cores around either because ARM Ltd. would sue you into oblivion if you tried to distribute one. The only thing i could find were ARMv3 designs - state-of-the-art of the 1990s .

FWIW... from July - Nov. 2001 there was an incomplete ARM v7 compatible design available for free download. It was done by a grad student. However ARM put a stop to that. Google "ARM clone Shengyu Shen"

From http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1203901 EE-Times article by Peter Clarke 6/29/2001 05:16 PM EDT

A near but not perfect clone of the ARM7 according to the OpenCores Web site, the nnARM runs all ALU, multiply, MAC and Program Status Register instructions. It also supports all single data transfer instructions, branches and certain forms of conditional execution.

Proving that the nnARM is very much a research vehicle, there are still several ARM functions it does not support. It does not support interrupt and exception handling, single data swap, block data transfer or coprocessor instructions, although Shen continues to upgrade the design.