[Chankama]

Man.. I just picked up a brand new $150-$200 FPGA board (programmable h/w) unit for $20!.. My university had a huge surplus of these boards and they were selling it away ..

Maybe I will get to work on that sound card project I was thinking of ..

[Nubius]

cool? I have no idea what you're talking about, but anything that was $150-200 purchased for $20 has got to be good

[HAVOC]

FPGA - Short for Field-Programmable Gate Array, a type of logic chip that can be programmed. An FPGA is similar to a PLD, but whereas PLDs are generally limited to hundreds of gates, FPGAs support thousands of gates. They are especially popular for prototyping integrated circuit designs. Once the design is set, hardwired chips are produced for faster performance.

Thank you Webopedia! You learn something everyday...

Sounds cool. What do you need that for?

[Chankama]

Originally posted by Nubius
but anything that was $150-200 purchased for $20 has got to be good

lol.. Indeed it is! .. Man, I couldn't believe it was going for that price. I bought it immediately and told a couple of my buddies, and they ran and bought two as well.. haha

Originally posted by HAVOC2k5
Sounds cool. What do you need that for?

It's used for both production level h/w as well as prototyping of h/w designs. ASICs (Application SPecific Integrated Circuits) are [expensive to make/board] if you are only making a few.. b/c the initial setup cost is pretty expensive (factories, etc.). Most mass produced electronics that you guys use are most likely ASICs.

But for low volume h/w (custom h/w), you can have your "hardware" in a programmable h/w module (FPGA). If you want to "prototype" a circuit before mass producing it, you can use a FPGA as well.

These days, you can "write" your digital hardware in Hardware Description Languages (HDL) that essentially describe the inputs/outputs as well as the functionality much like a s/w program. BUT, it is not really. A s/w program is sequential, while a h/w "program" is a description where order of the statements is not necessarily important.

For example, connection "A to B" and "D to E" - does the order matter?

You can take the HDL description and create a ASIC or download it to a FPGA board where it will reorganize itself in a sense to make the "h/w". You can even make CPUs on an FPGA board.

[HAVOC]

That's wild. I'm glad I asked. I enjoy a good learn once in awhile.

[Flanker]

This comes to mind;

Originally posted by Nubius
I R TEH STUPID....CHANKAMA R TEH SMART

[Nubius]

lol, pretty much. Can't believe you found that again lol.

Soooooooooooooooo, you're gonna do what with it?

[Chankama]

LOL! ..

I was thinking of making a sound card with it .. I gotta figure out the interfacing with the computer first. Before I interface directly with the computer itself, I'll probably just try connecting it to an existing "on board" (crappy) sound source and try to improve the quality of that. Then the speakers will connect to my little FPGA ..

One of my buddies made a USB radio, so maybe I can get some help from him with a USB interface to the computer.. We'll see .. I have to play with my FPGA first. And get a 5V DC source. And get a serial cable ..

[DJ-CHRIS]

Originally posted by Chankama
LOL! ..

I was thinking of making a sound card with it .. I gotta figure out the interfacing with the computer first. Before I interface directly with the computer itself, I'll probably just try connecting it to an existing "on board" (crappy) sound source and try to improve the quality of that. Then the speakers will connect to my little FPGA ..

One of my buddies made a USB radio, so maybe I can get some help from him with a USB interface to the computer.. We'll see .. I have to play with my FPGA first. And get a 5V DC source. And get a serial cable ..

Sound card will be a bit hard.

-You won't be able to increase the sound quality of a current card*. The sound quality is determined mainly by the Digital to Analog conveters

*You could build your own coverter and piggyback it on the digital output

-You need conveters if you make a soundcard

[Chankama]

Originally posted by DJ-CHRIS
Sound card will be a bit hard.

-You won't be able to increase the sound quality of a current card*. The sound quality is determined mainly by the Digital to Analog conveters

Not really man. Even though it does obviously play a role. After you get ur audio signal into the FPGA, you can attenuate various frequencies, identify "noise" to remove it, etc. etc. etc. All of this processing can significantly improve the quality of sound.

Just to give you an analogy, think of a image that has been corrupted by noise. People "clean" it by using various techniques. A sound signal is even easier. It is 1D as opposed to a 2D image.

I have worked with other analog signals and the input is pretty **** crappy. You need a good cleanup job if the input is not of great quality. Of course, you can't "create" information that has been lost. But you can do things after making various "assumptions".

As I said, this is a "first" step. Sort of get into the sound processing mode. The 2nd step is to bypass any onboard sound.

Originally posted by DJ-CHRIS

*You could build your own coverter and piggyback it on the digital output

-You need conveters if you make a soundcard

That's where my buddy comes in. He already worked on a USB radio. Instead of me duplicating his work, I am going to see if he's available to lend me a hand with the interfacing.