What I know there is no serial port or ethernet port in VHDL. But some
FPGAs have them and much more. How are they used.
I want to load packets of data from server/host to a FPGA and drive
things. But what is easy with controllers is not easy (or is it) with
FPGAs.
Whether or not something is 'easy' depends on the particular skills of
the individual that asks the question as well as the capabilities of
the devices that are being considered for implementation.
There is a large gap in complexity between the two interfaces that you
mentioned (serial or ethernet). Most (or all) of either interface can
be implemented in an FPGA, sometimes it makes sense to do so, other
times it does not. Since you haven't stated your requirements, you
need to work that out yourself first. Poke around at the FPGA
supplier web sites for IP blocks that look like they might fit your
needs or may influence what you think you need. Many things will
enter into the decision of whether or not you should use an FPGA or
something else (budgets, design complexity, resource usage, etc.)
Simply stating that you want to 'load packets of data from server/host
to a FPGA and drive
things' isn't much of a functional requirement definition for anyone
to help you out much. Whether or not something is 'easy with
controllers' but maybe 'not easy' with an FPGA simply suggests that
you're more familiar with controllers but that by itself isn't much of
a constraint to try to work within (i.e. maybe you need it to be very
easy from a design perspective because you only have two weeks to
complete the hardware design).
I would suggest clarifying what you think you need from a function and
performance perspective and then work on what your constraints are and
then post that description after which you'll probably get some good
feedback from this group as well as comp.arch.fpga and probably other
groups as well. Right now there isn't much to go on so the feedback
will probably not be very useful other than to stimulate you to do
more research.
Kevin Jennings
