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Ohm project update.

A project log for 'Flea Ohm' FPGA Project

My attempt at making an FPGA experimenters board in a popular form factor :)

valentin-angelovskiValentin Angelovski 12/07/2016 at 14:058 Comments

Hello again!

**** EDIT 12/12/2016: Due to the fact I still have no ETA on availability of certain key parts (like the FPGA) for this project, I have decided to put my Ohm and Ohm+ projects on-hold indefinitely and do other things with my spare time. This includes my newly-completed Ohm+ board with DDR3 RAM. Apologies to those of you who were waiting for positive news, but I am afraid without parts I cannot do much - Valentin ****

Just a thought I'd post a quick update on my Ohm project. Last weekend, I managed to successfully assemble and test my 'pre-production ready' revision Ohm board (yay!). My initial function tests show the board is behaving largely as expected but my tests are ongoing. Following is a 'happy snap' of the final assembled board:

So far, I've successfully configured the above with Next186 (x86) and Sweet32 SoC softcores. With luck, I should be able to set aside some time to complete the functional testing on the board in the coming days. More to follow..

Discussions

Erik Piehl wrote 12/16/2016 at 07:23 point

Hello, bad luck with those parts but this still is a great project! So you did hand assemble the pictured board too, right?

Cheers, Erik

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tcheko wrote 12/14/2016 at 20:44 point

Hi Valentin, 

Dunno the exact reference for the FPGA, but there is some supply available at digikey for ECP5 24K LUT chips. 

Regards, 

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Valentin Angelovski wrote 12/15/2016 at 01:05 point

Hello, those available parts you mention relate to their 381-ball BGA packaging. Those are significantly larger (and apparently more expensive) than their 285-ball BGA variants that I use for my Ohm board. 

In retrospect, I could have designed *something* around those larger ECP5 parts instead of using the current package style.. 

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tcheko wrote 12/15/2016 at 07:19 point

Hi Valentin, 

Looks like you chose the wrong horse there... I did a quick search on octopart.com for those 285-ball BGA package. Only digikey has this reference on catalog with a 0 stock... 

The 381-ball BGA variant is 'way' more available with 4 different sources for the cheapest one. 

Maybe a redesign around this 381-ball package could be done ? 

Anyway, I hope you'll find the will for following that project. 

Best regards !

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Valentin Angelovski wrote 12/15/2016 at 13:06 point

@tcheko,

One could see it that way.. 

While I could redesign my Ohm board using the larger FPGA package, it would not result in the (rather neat) configuration I've arrived at. May as well design a full-sized raspi style board in that scenario given the extra GPIO pins available on the larger BGA package.. ;-)

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John Fyffe wrote 12/12/2016 at 03:32 point

I hope you manage to work through you supply issues, it sounds like a very interesting board

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tcheko wrote 12/07/2016 at 20:08 point

Hi, 

Will it run Minimig core? :)

Thx !

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Valentin Angelovski wrote 12/08/2016 at 03:38 point

Hello!

Yes it should run Minimig even better now that I have included an easy means to add a mouse - even if it is only configured as a PS/2 pass-through at this time. Cheers.

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