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by 15155 177 days ago
> they're complicated to put down on boards

https://gowinsemi.com/en/product/detail/46/

- Requires just 1V2 + 3V3

- Available in QFN

- Bitstream is saved in internal flash or programmed to SRAM via a basic JTAG sequence

https://www.efinixinc.com/products-trion.html

2 comments

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I mean, yeah. My argument isn't that anything is impossible. My argument is that all of this is harder than it needs to be and this is not countering me!

This is your job, and it really shouldn't feel difficult. This is really not tedious: the minimum board design for these chips literally consists of just power, JTAG pins, and a clock (if the internal oscillator isn't good enough.)

The Gowin FPGAs are available (at a massive premium) from Mouser, just like whatever MCU you are already using. Many are available for <$1-2 in China. Efinix are available from DigiKey, with some SKUs under <$10.

All of the Gowin documentation is available on their site with a free, approval-less email login and no NDA, or via Google directly (PDFs, just like Xilinx, even numbered similarly.)

> All of the Gowin documentation is available on their site with a free, approval-less email login

The problem is trust. I'm hesitant to hand out my e-mail anywhere because far too often I have been hounded by salespeople as a result, not to mention data breaches or bombardment of newsletters.

If I really need something I'll go that route, yes. But for something that is just on a "cool, that might be interesting" it's too much effort.
Exactly!

If I need it I will go do the thing and jump through the hoop.

If I am exploring, hell no.

And, next week, if that thing I was exploring turns out to be useful, congratulations, you just sold 100,000 chips.

The Altera Max 10 devices are also relatively simple to support (flash on the chip, few power rails, etc.)