Cheap FPGA-based HDMI Experimenting Board

Description

The goal of this project is to create a relatively cheap board that can push 720p video through HDMI at a reasonable framerate for experimenting. To accomplish this, an FPGA (Xilinx Spartan-6 LX9) is used along with some DDR SDRAM for a framebuffer and a micro-SD slot to store any pictures or potentially video to display (unsure if video will work out speed-wise). To keep costs down it is using a 4-layer layout that should be able to be produced with a cheap service like OSH-Park. The PCB is also only 4in^2 so should be relatively inexpensive in terms of size.

The project is currently in the PCB-routing stage.

Project Logs

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Schematic Sources Uploaded!
Tom McLeod • 08/21/2014 at 19:49 • 0 comments

I have now uploaded my git repository for my schematic and PCB sources to github and put a link through this project page. I don't use git for hardware very often so my workflow with it isn't fully ironed out yet, though I'll try to keep it as up-to-date as I can while working on it. It's all still in progress on the PCB layout side, though hopefully I'll be able to get that fixed up soon. Then it's off to oshpark for the pcb's!
Schematics Complete!
Tom McLeod • 08/21/2014 at 03:26 • 0 comments

The schematics for the project are finished now and will be posted for all to see soon! Work is currently being done on the PCB layout, with the power supply fully routed. The DDR interface to the RAM is the next step and is quite difficult (particularly due to quirks in the KiCAD software currently being used). Depending on the difficulty of the routing another software may need to be used down the line, though for now I'm trying to keep to KiCAD so that anyone can view the entire project without needing special software. Though if another software is used for the PCB routing the schematics will always be kept up to date in KiCAD.

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Discussions

Tim Ansell wrote 09/21/2015 at 13:57

This looks very similar to the miniSpartan6+ - Have you seen that? https://github.com/scarabhardware/miniSpartan6-plus

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HectorH wrote 01/10/2015 at 02:24

How is this project different from the Pipistrello?

http://pipistrello.saanlima.com/index.php?title=Welcome_to_Pipistrello

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Tom McLeod wrote 01/10/2015 at 23:51

Well, mine has a lot less features and is smaller. It should also be a bit cheaper because of this.

Mine is more intended as a way to experiment with HDMI and DDR memory, whereas that one is more of a full development platform.

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TommiRouvali wrote 01/09/2015 at 20:57

Hi, I was wondering did OSH-park managed to build this board? I been planning on designing board for Spartan BGAs but cheap manufacturers have hole diameter and annual ring restrictions that makes that hard. OSH-park:

13 mil minimum drill size
7 mil minimum annular ring

So minimum via diameter is 13+7*2=27mil

Do you know any way around this?

Edit:

http://support.oshpark.com/support/solutions/articles/122263-4-layer-board-stackup-and-specifications

Ok so it is 10+2*4=18mil for 4 layer board. Hmm, this changes things :-)

Are you sure? yes | no

Tom McLeod wrote 01/10/2015 at 02:03

Unfortunately school caught up with me and I haven't managed to finish
the board yet, so I haven't sent it off to OSH-Park yet. I'm currently
working on moving the design over to Altium as KiCAD started annoying me
too much (RAM layout is difficult enough as it is without the CAD tool
getting in the way). I'll try and update things here once I've got the
PCB layout done in Altium.

Are you sure? yes | no

Cheap FPGA-based HDMI Experimenting Board

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