Hardware Podcasts

An Interview with Dave Vandenbout - Xceptional XESS Xenagogue

The Amp Hour · 22 Jan 2014 · 1h 33m · Episode 181

What this episode covers

Dave Vandenbout of XS Corporation (XESS) discusses the history and current state of FPGA development, explaining why FPGAs remain a niche tool compared to microcontrollers due to the parallel vs. sequential programming paradigm. He details his modular board architecture, including the Zula and StickIt boards, which abstracts complex peripherals like SDRAM to lower the barrier to entry for students and engineers. Vandenbout also advocates for open-source hardware and software tools, specifically highlighting his shift from Eagle to KiCad and his interest in using Python-based MyHDL to simplify FPGA learning.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
XS Corporation, Intel, Altera, Xilinx, Lattice
Products
Zula, Zula 2, StickIt
Chips
FPGA, SDRAM, Spartan 6, Spartan 3
Tools
KiCad, Eagle
Also
XESS, MyHDL, Python

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