[pci] Newcomer to PCI

[Sajid Farooq <sajid876@yahoo.co.uk>]

Hello all,

 

This is going to bea relatively long post, so for those who are allergic to newbies, you can safely delete this mail...

 

I am an Undergrad student of IT in Malaysia. I have to create a program that does lots and lots of calculations. Its pretty darn slow so i thought of parallel processing using an FPGA. Hardware performance should be better than pure software. About the only problem is that i am mainly a programmer not an engineering student so i am not so familiar with PCI (which i think i need for fasest performance) and so on.

 

I know how to design circuits etc. and how the implement my alogorthm and design in hardware using software like MAX+PLUS or Electronic workbench, but thats about it. So the questions are these:

 

(1) Is there a simple PCI/FPGA combination where i only need to say "Send this data to this pin" and then for example, "get data from this out pin" and so on, "Without" having to design a whole PCI interface to the FPGA.

 

(2) I take it that that is what a Core is supposed to do, i.e, the PCI Core is something like a predefined function which i can put into my design to enable it to use PCI, Yes/No?

 

(3) The PCI core presented here says something about MBone and a MBone bus or something, what about if i am designing a simple card that just straight plugs into any PCI slot and gets to work, will this Core still work? (after installing the drivers ofcourse.)

 

(4) I need an  FPGA device, a way to program it, and a PCI board that supports that FPGA device. Most PCI protyping boards cost a "huge!" amount of money. Altera sells a student edition of a FPGA programming device along with a chip which is very affordable, Can i buy a seperate cheap PCI board and itegrate my FPGA Chip into it? Will it be cheaper? will it be compaitble with the (FPGA) chip? Will i need to use the PCI core to interface it with the FPGA chip?

 

(5) Is there another easier programming option that won't cost me an arm and a leg?

 

Thanx in advance,

 

Sajid Farooq

 

P.s: This might not have been the best place to post this mail but i like the speedy responses here so forgive me... :)

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