But how do you get the finished FPGA onto your own circuit board? Sure, all that is necessary preliminary steps with a prototype board, but it's not a finished product yet. We need a followup video on this.
Theoretically, the next step is to make it out of TTL chips(if you're crazy enough), run software, then ship the logic design to a chip fab (I hear google is doing larger 100/50nm for relatively chip, as long as you make it open source).
@@rya3190 But I thought that the purpose of using an FPGA was so that you wouldn't have to have all those individual logic chips in the first place, but rather you can simply program it into a single FPGA chip. It's what happens after that that I'm asking about. And rather than having a custom chip fabricated, can you keep using an FPGA by ordering a board that has your custom circuitry on it plus the FPGA chip?
@@SDJ41 You should be able to...They probably sell them in chip form. The TTL was more of a joke, I'm pretty sure an FPGA would be faster and not as mind numbing. It's either you keep using the FPGA or get your chip made. If you're just tinkering, it's probably better just to keep the FPGA(s) and make a good circuit board for it/them, but if you're going to sell it, probably better to get the dedicated chip. Takes up less room, cheaper over time, and can't be messed up by customers (more or less...)
@@rya3190 Yes, that's it. I simply wanted to know if PCB order houses were capable of doing this. But I can see it depends on the seriousness of the project and what you're selling. Thanks.
So, heres my recommendation for this. Start very small. Pick up a low spec Lattice FPGA development board for something like an ice40 or something. From there make novel FPGA design you think is fun/cool/educative. It doesn't have to be super complex. Learn KiCAD for PCB design through Chris Gammel (contextual electronics) tutorials. Now the FPGA you choose may have multiple voltages and you might have to sequence those so you'll need to learn how to do that with power sequencing ic's or do it discretely yourself. There's a lot of things to keep in mind when designing a PCB for an FPGA, even if it's a low spec one, but its great fun to learn and you'll feel very accomplished at the end. I hope this is enough to point you in the right direction. Try and do some intermediate circuit projects as well before you tackle a whole custom FPGA solution. But definitely reach for the stars.
