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Software/Hardware FPGA Dev Board that runs Linux

Posted by Hemos on from the bringing-it-together dept.

bforsse writes "The ML300 allows engineers to develop hardware with HDL synthesis/simulation and software with standard GNU tools. The entire system is implemented inside one FPGA with an integrated IBM PPC processor. The board comes with all the peripherals that a standard motherboard or laptop has and then some. It currently ships with MontaVista Linux, a number of other linux flavors and OSs are in the pipeline. Maybe this new merging of the hardware and software worlds will settle some of the religious wars between hw and sw engineers?...ok, maybe not."

36 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. funny... by jda487 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...the term 'engineer' is used very loosely when you are refering to software engineers...

    1. Re:funny... by WhaDaYaKnow · · Score: 4, Interesting

      ...the term 'engineer' is used very loosely when you are refering to software engineers...

      Well that's what hardware engineers think when the software engineer disagrees to install MS-DOS 3.3 to test the hardware. ;-)

      Seriously though, I've been through two board bringups, both Intel Architecture.

      The first board was considered 'done' by the hardware guys, after it booted DOS. I told them that that was not really a test, and sure enough months (and numerous patch wires) later we finally were able to use _all_ the features on the board and boot Linux and Win95.

      On the second board I was most impressed with the software tools hardware guys used. NOT! Although the board was more or less up and running I found a couple of places where transmits were connected to transmits and receives to receives. I asked why the schematic capture tools didn't catch such obvious mistakes. I know the software can, but quite honestly, all the software used for hardware design feels like it was written by, uh, hardware guys. :-O

      Seriously though, the software tools that hardware engineers use leave a lot to be desired (I mean, the last board I worked on was in 2002 and they used a DOS based program to do the layout for peet's sake)

      In defense of the hardware engineer though, he'd use symbols provided by the manufacturer and they, for some reason, could not be bothered to indicated the type of signal a pin has properly (e.g. input, output, bidir, etc..)

      Until today I never understand why they'd risk the change of having to do a new rev of a board vs the cost of spending a few minutes to create the symbols properly.

      Then again, I've seen software 'engineers' do the same stupid stuff. ;-)

    2. Re:funny... by anubi · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Seriously though, the software tools that hardware engineers use leave a lot to be desired (I mean, the last board I worked on was in 2002 and they used a DOS based program to do the layout for peet's sake)

      I work in circuit design all the time, and I use DOS based tools for schematic, PCB layout, and circuit analysis (spice). Why?

      Most of the stuff I do links to stuff I have done before. I have no trouble with my DOS tools re-opening files say 10 years old. I also know that I will be able to see my files 10 years from now if I play my cards right and do *not* "upgrade".

      Processors change. Although my schematic capture program requires an 8088 or better, both the PCB layout and circuit analyzer require at least an 80386. As processors changed, I simply copied the files to a directory on the new machine and they run. No "installation" or registry entries, authorization codes, or the like. They just run.

      The libraries on all of the programs are user configurable. As any new parts come out, I simply enter the configuration into the library.

      No user authentication. These programs were coded in a day where there was not all this emphasis on piracy - I am free to move these programs around to any machine I get my hands on. And because the family of machines I use all run the exact same software, the files can be read/modified/written on any machine without need of version controls. It was common in those days to buy a "site license".

      The programs are quite small. The schematic editor, along with all its libraries, and a good sized project's worth of files will all fit on a 1.4 Megabyte bootable floppy! The spice analyzer requires 1 floppy, and the PCB layout program requires three floppies. None of the programs require any sort of "installation", per se. Just make a subdirectory for them, copy them over, and run the appropriate .exe file and start work.

      But the part I like best is that I intimately understand what these programs are doing. If something goes amiss somewhere, I know where to look. Their file structures are pretty simple; if something goes amiss, I can usually patch it with a hexadecimal file editor.

      If I want the file in another format, its usually not all that difficult to pull up the C++ compiler and code a little file converter.

      The schematic editor and spice analyzer are wide open to debuggers, but the people who made the PCB editor got crafty and made theirs hard to debug- just thank goodness they coded it well and there was only one instance where their program needed debugging. ( For those of you who have ever had to use what passes for technical support, you may find the time better spent learning how to fix it yourself.) But this was five years ago.. today fixing it yourself is illegal in many cases as a result of the congresscritters foisting DMCA on us.

      I know its fashionable for me to say I run the latest systems. If the later systems actually gave me better results, I would gladly switch, but all I see out there is I would be throwing away a trusted and faithful system to get more problems than I could shake my proverbial stick at.

      My take on this is that my tools are precisely that: tools. It took me 12 years of education before I could even emit a coherent sentence in English. It took me 5 years in front of a keyboard before I typed halfway worth a damm. What I am trying to say is that although hardware and software complexity has grown by leaps and bounds, I have not. It still takes me a helluva long time to learn how to use this stuff. If I spent all this time learning how to play a piano fluently, I feel foolish going onto stage with a clarinet. My job is not learning new tools all the time, its applying what I know to get a job done. Would you want a seasoned old mechanic using his grandpa's wrench on your car, or somebody with the latest 200HP pneumatic tool seating the oil-drain plug? ( I use that as an example because they did it to me... that car never stopped leaking oil once they improperly used that power wrench on my car.)

      If what I am doing is bad, I guess it won't matter much - as this is my last decade I think I will be in the job force. This grandpa is about ready for pasture.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]

    3. Re:funny... by cybergibbons · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Hardware design tools tend to be extremely poor. Doing an EE degree, you get to use quite a few of them, and soon realise that no proper software engineer could have been involved in the design of these tools.

      Shall I show some examples?

      • Open/Save/etc. dialogs that always start from the same directory (eg. something nested really deeply in the windows directory). This is common in programs which require you to open many files, eg. VHDL compilers.
      • Context senstive menu bars... Altera Max Plus does this. The menu bar changes depending which window you are in. It makes options that affect other windows only accessible from others. It changes the order of the menu bar. Very annoying.
      • Old style open/save dialog boxes from win 3.11 era that don't have Desktop and all those other buttons....
      • Meaningless errors all over the shop... they don't reflect on the design you are working on, but still, get in the way.
      • Ok/Cancel pop ups after every single stage in the compilation/simulation process. This would be good if it took hours and I wanted to stop it, but these things pop up, always in the centre of the screen, away from where you are using the mouse. Why?
      • Horrible visual design (Synplify)... the buttons on the screen are entirely random sizes. Looks like it was programmed by kids, there is no consistency between one screen and another, so you have to hunt for buttons.
      • Huge amounts of windows (Modelsim) - if you are simulating a design, you can end up with over 20 windows open, all seperate, and it gets very confusing, especially with some of them not having any informative information (such as the name of the file) on the taskbar button.
      • Assuming that you work at a given resolution (eg. 1024x768). Most development environments benefit greatly from being used on high resolutions... but when the designed of the software assumed you would use one resolution alone, you end up with tiny text, things that look very odd when maximised etc.
      • Different implementations of VHDL - what works in one compiler may not in others. This can lead to tearing hair out.
      • Stupidly expensive - some of these packages cost more than $10,000... you think they would work better.
      • I could go on and on and on...

      Essentially, there are so many stupid, small mistakes in the user interfaces in these pieces of software, that it leads to people making mistakes. The less time you have to spend using them the better, so designs don't get tested or verified fully....

  2. As an electrical engineer, I know that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    VHDL is a tool of terror! Especially when put in the hands of those lunix cyberterrorists! These terrorists and their sympathizers are an affront to American liberty, justice, and equality for all non-Muslims. I strongly urge the Right Honourable Prime Minister George Williamson Bush, Junior to pass binding legislation which would put an end to these un-American activities.

    P.S. I have similar views on the 3rd world clone chip manufacturer, AMD.

  3. Yeah, sure. by modecx · · Score: 5, Funny

    The board comes with all the peripherals that a standard motherboard or laptop has and then some.

    With a $6k price tag, it should come with a high class hooker.

    --
    Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
    1. Re:Yeah, sure. by baywulf · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If you want a cheaper FPGA board, then try out the following company. They have some decent boards for under $100 though no microprocessor is included.

      http://www.digilentinc.com/

    2. Re:Yeah, sure. by Asprin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Dude, I'm not sure who she is, but is there a reason why her web page has a Slashdot banner on her links page?

      --
      "Lawyers are for sucks."
      - Doug McKenzie
  4. GNU tools? by e__alf · · Score: 3, Informative

    The GNU tools are just for the software part.. the actual FPGA design tools are still covered by what looks like 200 patents (and runs on NT or Solaris)

    But still, me wants! Think about it.. 4 PowerPC cores embedded in a sea of programmable logic? *drool*

  5. What can you do with it. by jericho4.0 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Ok. I have a vauge idea what a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is. I understand that this is a device that can be programmed on the chip level. But I still don't understand what this is, really.

    Can someone with a bit of know-how point us towards some more info?

    --
    "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    1. Re:What can you do with it. by anonymous+cupboard · · Score: 4, Informative
      I don't think there is a single 'HOWTO' on the subject, but essentially an FPGA is a chip with a large array of simple logic gates that may be interconnected in a programmable way. Tools exist to simulate and compile logic expressions into a form where they can be downloaded into an FPGA as a gate interconnection matrix. Once the FPGA has been programmed, it then will execute the logic function.

      As with software, a lot of modules exist (mostly quite expensive) for logic blocks up to and including microprocessor cores. Rather than having a chip with a single function, it is possible to squeeze multiple functions upto the limits imposed by the gate count.

      FPGAs can be reprogrammable, or programmable once only. There is a often fusable link inside that once blown prevents reprogramming or designs to be read out.

      If you are producing quantity, then you can go from an FPGA component to a gate array which is programmed by a photographic mask during manufacture. The mask is prepared from the same program that created the FPGA. The setup costs are high, but once you talk about big numbers of chips, the component becomes significantly cheaper than an FPGA and often better performing.

    2. Re:What can you do with it. by sheddd · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's a Field Programmable Gate Array...

      It's a piece o hardware that you can buy to do stuff (you tell it how to map out a 'virtual processor'). If you had one large enough you could emulate an x86 cpu.

      They're used mostly in applications where (price OR time to market OR development costs) are a big factor. Custom silicon for a custom purpose will always be faster, and cheaper (If you build enough to justify the development costs).

      Flame away, more knowledgeable /.errs; Trying my best with a shallow understanding.

    3. Re:What can you do with it. by kirn_malinus · · Score: 2, Informative
      An FPGA is used to design hardware in it's early stages. It allows hardware engineers to define the hardware on a PC, by drawing schematics and writing descriptions in Hardware Description Languages (HDLs) like Verilog and VHDL. The FPGA software on the PC then links to the FPGA itself (through a serial cable or whatever) and programs an "array of gates" to implement the functionality the designers have defined. What this means, essentially, is that it defines the interconnections between prefabbed gates on a chip to cause them to implement the specified logic.

      It is used in early stages of hardware design to verify timing and functional correctness, and heavily in education. Sometimes final production products will use FPGAs, but usually only when the production volume is low. This is because FPGAs are more expensive per individual unit than ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits), but ASICs require more expense on design costs.

      --
      All circuits busy.
    4. Re:What can you do with it. by baywulf · · Score: 3, Informative

      The book "ASIC" has a good chapter on FPGAs. Go to the following link and review chapter 5. http://www.dacafe.com/ASICs.htm

      But the answer your question briefly, the internal structure of the FPGA is an array of computational logic blocks. The boundary between these blocks in the array is routing logic that allows nearly arbitrary connections between the logic blocks. There are also IO blocks at the perimeter of the array. Each logic block typically consists of some combinational logic followed by a register element. The combinational logic element can be programmed to implement arbitrary logic functions of around 4-8 inputs. Thus you can configure a block to be a 1 bit adder, a mux, register, etc. By programming the CLBs and routing between the blocks, an hardware system can be built. You write the hardware description in Verilog, VHDL or schematics capture. Then a synthesizer maps your design to a bit pattern necessary to program the FPGA. You generally program this into the chip or into an external flash memory connected to the FPGA.

  6. VHDL by Amon+Re · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does linux even have any good VHDL simulators?

    1. Re:VHDL by dlbowm · · Score: 5, Informative

      Icarus (http://www.icarus.com/eda/verilog/) is a competent Verilog (not VHDL) open source simulator. It even has some support for sythesizing to some FPGA libraries.
      Verilog is more common than VHDL in the US, so this is the only open source HDL tool I've used. Primarily, we are still slaves to Synopsis and Cadence though.

    2. Re:VHDL by Colonel+Panic · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, there have been a couple of attempts, but nothing complete...

      Right now the most interesting one is a VHDL frontend for GCC called GHDL.

      Also note that you need a lot more than a simulator to get it to work with this board: you need a synthesis tool that can map into the Xilinx part. The FPGA companies tend to keep their formats quite proprietary, so don't expect any open source tools for synthesis and tech mapping any time soon.... (unfortunately).

    3. Re:VHDL by jeff_bond · · Score: 2, Informative
      Does linux even have any good VHDL simulators?

      Certainly, Modelsim

      Jeff

      --
      stty erase ^H
  7. Not quite for the masses by dlbowm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This looks interesting, but way too expensive to break down any barriers in the short term. Actually, being hardware (ASIC) designer, many of the embedded software guys know their hardware as well as the designers. Some, however, need their hands held every step of the way and can't understand why we put all those damned interrupt capabilities in there. Just makes the software harder to write!
    I'd love to see something like this out in the market in a lower price range. It's great to have GNU software tools to write code inexpensively, and to have hardware as well would really be fun and useful. Sharing cool hardware accelerator HDL with others would be great. I've used Icarus recently and it is becoming quite a useable open source alternative to vcs, verilog xl, nc verilog, etc.

  8. The V2Pro's are very cool parts by nweaver · · Score: 4, Informative

    EG, the XC2VP7 which is used in the core of that board has a PowerPC (>250 MHz), 8 SERDESes which can speak Gb ethernet with optical transievers (among other things), about 100 Kb of RAM, and 11,000 4-LUTs and flip-flops.

    Xilinx promises that at the end of the year, in suitable quantities (>25,000), they will be $100/each.

    --
    Test your net with Netalyzr
  9. TCPA by raistphrk · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Maybe this new merging of the hardware and software worlds will settle some of the religious wars between hw and sw engineers? ...or maybe this will provide an architecture that's free of DRM? If TCPA ends up being as insidious as we think it will be, an alternative architecture will be in order for those who want to actually USE their PCs (as opposed to their $1500 multimedia toaster that they bought from Intel). This is good. This is very good.

  10. really get a nice arch by johnjones · · Score: 3, Insightful

    god I hate PPC infact I nearly hate it as much as x86 but...

    now ARM a nice little design there is the same deal but with a ARM that altera do and see www
    and MIPS have been doing a dev board with a hard and soft core mix for a while

    well you never guess they ALL come with GNU tools and as they use standard arch that linux is already ported to

    really what you want to get into is a CPU on a FPGA and one that you dont have to pay a licence for this is what opencores.org is about and credit to them flextronics have started looking at it for a solution see

    news about the use of open hardware at

    the openRisc 100 project at

    See the FAQ at

    hope that helps

    regards

    John Jones

  11. Religious war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The problems of the war are pretty easy to solve.

    Assume that $religion means the presence of a $diety (belief systems without a $diety, like Taoism, will not be considered ${religion}s, which is to their credit).

    Either $diety is hardware (real, grounded in nature, possibly via a marked green cable) or is software (virtual, made up in human minds, subject to revision and short-lived cultural fad approaches like "extreme religion" and "christianity"). Since there are and have been umpteen different $dieties, none of which has lasted, while the hardware has remained relatively stable, $diety is software. This is also confirmed by the near-universal belief that $diety is infinite, which can only be true of software (since it is virtual). As a side note when you consider the state of software this explains a LOT.

    So since $diety is software and software requires hardware to run, hardware engineers are titans. They win and software engineers lose.
    But since $diety is software and can thus be made and freely and infinitely revised by software engineers, they're the ones who are titans. They win and hardware engineers lose.

    So I hope that's cleared things up. Now fight amongst yourselves.

  12. Re:I prefer hardwired hardware by kinnell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Using an FPGA does not in any way require "weird driver CDs". Nor do they prevent the hardware developers from implementing clean well defined, standard interfaces. In fact hardware implemented in an FPGA is no different from the users point of view from hardware implemented any other way, or from embedded software running on a micro-controller for that matter.

    If your USB peripherals didn't work properly, its because they were poorly designed. This has nothing to do with the choice of using an FPGA to implement the interface.

    To say that hardware engineers are immitating the mistakes of software engineers is ridiculous, (although obviously some are making the same mistakes). Is it therefore perfectly acceptable for software engineers to implement poorly designed interfacesand neglect testing and quality control? I don't think so, but perhaps we have become numb to this issue. Bad engineering is bad engineering. The choice of using FPGAs for an emerging standard is good engineering, because if the standard changes before maturing the hardware does not then become instantly obsolete. This is why FPGAs are popular in mobile telecoms base stations, and rightly so. Being able to upgrade hardware is a good thing. Releasing an immature design is bad, both in hardware and software.

    --
    If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
  13. Hardware/Software convergence - the real thing by kinnell · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The xilinx parts are for embedded systems, and have no real benefits for your average PC user (hence they can market them them for $$$).

    Look here for genuinely cool FPGA technology. They use transputer based technology to implement parallel algorithms in, well, parallel. The demos are very impressive - real time raytracing @50MHz anyone?

    --
    If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
    1. Re:Hardware/Software convergence - the real thing by Memetic · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Celoxica's main product is a development environment that basically lets you write C code and drop it onto an FPGA. (Yes it runs on Linux.)

      Its a lot faster to develop this way than more traditional methods (HDL's) as its so easy to iterate, for example being able to drag code back and forth to optimise the flow between a processor on your board and an FPGA being used as a custom parallell coprocessor is pretty cool.

      As for the demos, that ray trace one is pretty cool, but I did like the space invaders demo - I think the game code was from a ROM dump - you even got an insert coin prompt!

  14. One seriously amazing part by freeio · · Score: 3, Informative

    The ability to run one or more concurrent instances of Linux (or whatever, quite frankly) internally to one of the Xilinx Virtex II parts is seriously amazing. Ignore the board it comes on for development for now - that is just cruft. The Virtex II is probably the most powerful instantly reconfigurable DSP engine in existence (think audio, video manipulation at real time speeds). They have internal hardware to perform from 16 to 128 simultaneous 16x16 multiply/accumulate operations simultaneously, _in_one_clock_cycle_. And if you don't like what it is doing, you can change it, time and time again, forever. Raw Power. Complete Reconfigurability. Sweet!

    Combine this kind of power with multiple PPC processors on the same die, and the possibilities are incredible. The big difficulty is that the operation of the hardware and software can be so tightly tied together that it is difficult to program and debug. Everything is controlled by software (both the software and the VHDL or Verilog based FPGA code) and so the possibilities are limitless.

    Kudos to Jim Ready and the folks at Monta Vista for supporting this kind of device with development tools for Linux.

    --
    Soli Deo Gloria
  15. Nice, but... by eXtro · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd much prefer a native port of their FPGA development tools. They list compatibility with Redhat 7.2 but if you read the fine print that means that you use WINE to run them. Better yet, release specifications on programming your CLBs and routing. You would then see some real innovation in tools come out. FPGA's should be the electronics hobbiests component of choice much like PROMs and 7400 series TTL logic was a couple of decades ago. Instead you're forced into using their tools, which the last time I used (admittedly ~7 years ago) were about as much fun as extracting your molars with a spoon.

    --

    Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware

  16. Re:System Requirements by girmann · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hmm... I beg to differ.

    Pehaps you have heard of a VHDL simulator called Modelsim? They have a Linux version and they have found that through test after test Modelsim runs much faster on Linux than on any other platform. That's why they are targeting Linux.

    --
    Nietzsche is dead. --God
  17. Re:I prefer hardwired hardware by kinnell · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ummm--no. The "FP" in "FPGA" stands for "field-programmable", and it is field programmability that I'm arguing against. Field programmability usually means that I, the user, need to do something to the device.

    "Field programmable" does not mean that you have to program it, any more than it means that you have to design it. The most common way of programming an FPGA is from a PROM chip on board. FPGAs are used as much in applications where ASICs are too expenensive as where field programmability is actually needed, if not more. If your digital camera manufacturer expects that you load an FPGA bitstream from your PC everytime you switch it on then, well, you should have read some reviews before you parted with your cash. Anyway, what's better, a device which is buggy and can't be upgraded, or a device which is buggy and can be upgraded? If you think traditional hardware designs are bug-proof, or can be exhaustively tested to ensure reliability, I'm sorry to dissapoint you. Hardware is generally as reliable as it is, because most firms are very good at hardware test and qualification, and there are well developed methodologies. This doesn't mean that bugs don't slip through. (Hint: don't buy the really cheap stuff)

    --
    If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
  18. LEON by girmann · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nobody here has mentioned the LOEN progect, which is based on the SPARC V8. This is an open processor core that you can put into any FPGA. Speeds aren't as great as the PowerPC in this desing, but hey, it works!

    --
    Nietzsche is dead. --God
  19. Correct Link by fredistheking · · Score: 2, Interesting

    here

  20. Re:FPGA tools and Linux (was: Re:GNU tools?) by imadork · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Synplicity doesn't do fitting and layout, just synthesis. I am using Altera FPGA's in my current project, and am currently using Synplicity and Quartus (Altera's design software) under Linux with absolutely no problems. It beats the pants off of our Solaris compute servers, which while they're older, cost 5x as much for half the performance. This is getting IT people turned on about Linux, and I'm hoping my next desktop will be Linux-based instead of NT (but I'm not holding my breath).

    As far as I know, Xilinx doesn't have a direct Linux port of their software, but say that their Windows Binaries will run under WINE. I don't know, as I haven't used Xilinx stuff in some time.

  21. Board details by brandido · · Score: 2, Informative
    Some information on the boards:

    The CPU board, that has all of the main components on it, is an 16 layer board. It comes with 8 - 3.125 gigabit capable transceivers (used as 4 gigabit fiber, two HSSDC2/Infiniband and two Serial ATA), 128 MBytes of DDR, 2 PS/2, 2 Serial Ports, Parallel Port, FireWire, two PCCard/PCMCIA slots, Compact Flash interface (for configuration and file system) PMC slot, BDM and Trace ports, JTAG port, AC97 audio codec and a kitchen sink.

    The Power-I/O board, that has the TFT, most of the I/O and the majority of power regulation, is an 8 layer board, and has a 640x480 TFT, 14 I/O buttons, a multitude of LEDs and a small prototyping area underneath the TFT.

    Included with the kit is a 1GB microdrive, 2 fiber cables, 2 serial cables, an HSSDC2 cable, a serial ATA cable, two flavors of firewire, a Parallel Cable 4 programming cable, Xilinx ISE software, Chipscope ILA Pro, and on and on.

    In addition, I would like to say that this was an exciting project to work on - between the gigabit transceivers, the DDR and the high density of components on the board, this was the hardest board I've designed (I did the majority of the schematics and parts of the layout).

    --
    First Falcon-1 to orbit, then Falcon-9. Then I can die a happy man.
  22. Re:$4695 is really expensive for an FPGA by Bassman59 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    heroine: "Doing stuff in hardware is neat because it runs real fast, you're interacting with the real world instead of living in a black box, and you can charge money for it. Other than that, it's too expensive to use in most commercial situations and you need to go back to a general purpose computer. Let's put it this way. The ML300 is $4695 in materials. A standalone FPGA with supporting electronics and PCB fabrication is $100 in materials. Pure software on a general purpose computer is $0 in materials."

    The board is expensive because tech support for something like this is expensive. By charging a non-trivial amount of money, the vendor is able to weed out the non-serious players.

  23. Re:$4695 is really expensive for an FPGA by bforsse · · Score: 2, Informative

    The bulk of the cost of the ML300 is not in the FPGA. The peripherals on the board and the accessories in the kit constitute a lot of the price.

    If you're interested in a "standalone" development board those are also available.