One day before Christmas a guy from DHL knocked on my door and handed me a parcel from Xilinx. I hadn't order anything from them so I was a bit surprised. I opened the box and found a new development board. Then I realized it was a present from Xilinx. It gave me the idea to continue this story and this time we are going to learn more about the XtremeDSP Spartan 3A development board.
The Spartan 3A Starter Platform
The Spartan-3A Starter Platform provides a platform for engineers designing with the Xilinx Spartan-3A DSP FPGA. The board provides the necessary hardware to not only evaluate the advanced features of the Spartan-3A DSP but also to implement complete user applications using peripherals on the Spartan-3A DSP Starter Platform and/or EXP modules plugged into EXP expansion connectors on the Spartan-3A DSP Starter Platform.
EXP connectors
The new EXP specification defines a versatile expansion interface to FPGA baseboards, allowing designers to add application-specific daughter cards and easily connect to the FPGA I/Os. With an EXP-enabled board, you can add functions from a growing list of off-the-shelf EXP modules or you can focus your efforts on building your own add-on module(s) while leveraging the existing baseboard functions. The EXP specification was developed exclusively for the unique requirements of FPGA development boards.
