[Fpga-synth] actel

[ryan williams]

hi all,

I've been watching you all, off an on, since this list started.
yesterday i started with my avnet s3a board doing some tests with
eric's dac board. I now have 1 evening of actual fpga experience, even
though i've done some simulations with xilinx ISE. its nice to see how
simple it is to make an oscillator and dac work. I coming from 3 years
of embedded development (ARM7, Coldfire, others) and EE school before
that. but, i'm super beginner with fpgas.

Has anyone had any experience with Actel parts? I'm seeing the igloo
nano and proasic3 nano parts. any comments about using them for
synths? I like the flash that they have and they are cheap. $5-$15 for
250K and less parts. they become much more, $40+ for the larger parts.

there is a cheap evaluation board. $55 for a igloo nano 250k board. it
comes with a programmer stick that looks like it can be used in my own
designs later. i don't know much about what to look for as far
resources go. My thought it to use these cheap little $5 or $10 ones
for individual modules in my mostly analog modular. I think of
replacing the digital VCO i built last year that ran a dspic at 120MHz
using 120mA at 5V. also, maybe a frequency shifter.

-Ryan