[time-nuts] Controlling FEI 5680A

[Attila Kinali]

On Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:27:27 -0500
paul swed <paulswedb at gmail.com> wrote:

> FPGAs are generally intended for the mass market with a steep learning
> curve. Though they can be pressed into whats of interest to time-nuts it
> simply seems like a overly complicated technology and method for a non-mass
> market solution.

Actually, they are not. In the mass market, you dont want to use FPGAs
due to their high cost. As soon as you produce more then 10k pieces (in total)
you start thinking about doing an ASIC.

And the learning curve isn't any more steep than for learning how to
work with a uC. It's just that most people know already a bit of programming
which makes it far easier to learn enough C to do something with a uC.
At the same time, programming experience makes it more difficult to
learn VHDL/Verilog, because people think it works like a programming language
which it definitly does not.

But yes, you are right. An FPGA is probably not the right thing. Not because
it is more difficult, but rather because there are less tools and less
documentation available. Hence making it more difficult for the hobbyist
to handle FPGAs than uCs.

			Attila Kinali

-- 
The trouble with you, Shev, is you don't say anything until you've saved
up a whole truckload of damned heavy brick arguments and then you dump
them all out and never look at the bleeding body mangled beneath the heap
		-- Tirin, The Dispossessed, U. Le Guin