Hi guys, I'm going to jump in here with an end-user's perspective, along with an offer of assistance/contribution.
I'm interested in using Altera's SOCs in my designs. Altera guys - if you look over on the Altera Forum, you will see that I am very active over there (basically answering everyone's FPGA questions). Up until now I have avoided any SoC development kits as I considered the software support to not have matured enough. I consider "mature" code to be code that I can checkout from mainline, where mainline is U-Boot via the Denx repos, and Linux via the Kernel repos. Freescale has done this forever, and I hold their processors and code in high regard. Texas Instruments has recently realized that this is the way to go, and have invested significantly in this area - as demonstrated by Tom Rini. TI have dedicated a page to mainlining: http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/tools-software/mainlinelinux.page TI have similarly gained my respect. The fact that discussion is now occurring for Altera's SoCs indicates to me that a certain level of maturity has been reached and that it is now time for me to consider using these devices. I'd like to help, and I'm sure Ira Snyder will help too (most likely more so than me). I would like to obtain some SoC development kits so as to help with the SoC "experience" for end-users. To aid in this development, I'd like some recommendations on what hardware to buy. I've included the list below the body of this email (to save cluttering the flow of this discussion). Its possible for me to obtain one or more of these boards. Which ones are supported in mainline U-Boot and Linux? What will it take to make it easier for the end-user like myself? I would like to be able to buy something like the Critical Link or Denx modules and simply plug them into my custom hardware, configure the FPGA fabric with whatever custom "magic" I need, have Ira develop a custom drive to that "magic" and just have things *WORK*. As an end-user, I don't want to have to pull a dozen patches off the mailing list to get a working system. Altera's success in the SoC market depends on "getting it right" with respect to integration with the open-source community. That integration involves playing by the established set of rules. Wolfgang and his (creation and) support of U-Boot is of immeasurable value to the open-source community. Altera developers, please follow Wolfgang's advice. Cheers, Dave Hawkins, California Institute of Technology. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Cyclone V SoC Development Kit http://www.altera.com/products/devkits/altera/kit-cyclone-v-soc.html This is the main kit that most people are probably developing with. At $1,795 its pretty expensive, but I could request a couple of kits from the Altera University Program. 2. Arria V SoC kit http://www.altera.com/products/devkits/altera/kit-arria-v-soc.html At $3,495 this is also very expensive. This board still ships with ES (Engineering Sample), so I would not buy this yet. 3. Terasic/Arrow SOCKit http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&No=816 At $299 this is pretty reasonable. 4. SOC System-on-Modules http://www.altera.com/devices/processor/soc-fpga/cyclone-v-soc/module/system-module.html eg, Critical Link MitySOM http://www.criticallink.com/product/mitysom-5csx/ http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Critical-Link/5CSX-H6-42A-RC/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMvtrnhC60i%252bOnQkBUtKjKom2RbBJy3SVoI%3d Each module is about $600 at Mouser. 5. Denx MCV board http://www.denx-cs.de/?q=MCV These modules look reasonably priced. The CriticalLink and Denx modules look suitable for my intended application, i.e., as the controller for a much larger FPGA board. Wolfgang - feel free to advise me to use the Denx modules, and I'll take a more critical look at the data sheets to check they have the features I want to use. _______________________________________________ U-Boot mailing list U-Boot@lists.denx.de http://lists.denx.de/mailman/listinfo/u-boot
