The outcome of this project is a logic analysator for home use.
The project includes the actual analyzer in VHDL (for Spartan 3 FPGA) and a PC Software for the end user. The design employs a FPGA board that can be obtained easily.
The device uses a Xilinx Spartan 3 Starter Kit (DO-SPAR3-DK) evaluation board manufactured by Digilent. It features a XC3S200-4 FPGA with 4ns propagation delay and 3840 cells. Onboard are 1MByte of 10ns SRAM and plenty connectors that can be used as signal inputs.
To construct a comparable board from scratch would be a tough task for a home project. Especially the really low price of about USD100 makes it pointless to try to compete with this "mass product". All that remains to be done is to program the FPGA. For an overview of the VHDL code see:
To learn how to communicate with the analyzer read:
A java client is used to access the device from almost any PC with a serial port. The client uses the RXTX library for serial port communications which is available for 34 platforms including Linux, Windows and Solaris.
It has been developed with jdk 1.4.2 but might work with older versions. More information about the client can be found on its page:
Files found in the downloadable archives below are released under the GNU GPL.
Packages contain all that is needed for PC client, FPGA and tester.
See history for a list of changes between versions
Logic Analyzer Package v0.8 - Binary (2007-03-03)
Logic Analyzer Package v0.8 - Source (2007-03-03)
These downloads are provided without any testing.
Altera DE2: Experimental Port to Verilog for Altera DE2 Board - Source (2007-05-21)
(Contributed by Kenneth Tsang. Uses external SRAM.)
Altera DE2: Experimental Port to Verilog for Altera DE2 Board - Source (2007-05-21)
(Contributed by Kenneth Tsang. Uses internal M4K SRAM.)
Spartan 3E: Experimental Version for New Spartan 3E Starter Kit - Source (2007-03-08)
(Contributed by Jonas Diemer. Uses internal BRAM with optional RLE.)
Logic Analyzer Package v0.7 - Source (2006-12-31)
Logic Analyzer Package v0.6 - Source (2006-08-19)
Logic Analyzer Package v0.5 - Source (2006-06-18)
Logic Analyzer Package v0.4 - Source (2006-05-23)
Logic Analyzer Package v0.3 - Source (2006-05-05)