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This might come across as a really silly question for some of you, but to give more context - I want to buy a gift for someone else and I have found a TinyFPGA BX, but it says "without pins".

What does that mean? As far as I know, pins are quite essential. The description does not really explain what that means. Does that imply it cannot be hooked up to a breadboard, etc?

Link to the product TinyFPGA BX (Without Pins)

JRE
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NewToCoding
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  • BGA capsule? As in pinless? – winny Dec 08 '20 at 10:10
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    Note that people typically have very detailed preferences about their hobbies. For this reason, it's difficult to buy an appropriate hobby-related gift for someone even if you share the hobby. If you don't, it's nearly impossible. I recommend you choose a different topic for gift selection. – Reid Dec 09 '20 at 00:41
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    This has an extremely high chance of being either a white elephant at worst or useless at best. The programming interface on this device is super questionable, the chip itself is from Lattice, not one of the particularly "big" players in the FPGA market so their tools and development environment may not be particularly good. Your friend might be a Xilinx person or an Altera person and this would just be junk to them – Sam Dec 09 '20 at 04:05
  • @sam: I believe TinyFPGA is a legit device, and its objective is not to "compete" with any FPGA vendor. Just as an Arduino might not be the best microcontroller, it damn well is the best one for beginners ( The community support plays a big role here). Here's an interview with the creator : https://theamphour.com/395-an-interview-with-luke-valenty/ He also has some tutorials for beginners : https://hackaday.io/lukevalenty – Tejas Kale Dec 09 '20 at 11:57
  • When a device is sold "with pins" it will look something like https://www.amazon.co.uk/Teensy-4-0-With-Pins/dp/B08259KDHY/ (note that this is a Teensy, which is an ARM-based microcontroller, so nothing like the TinyFPGA BX) – user7761803 Dec 09 '20 at 12:04
  • @TejasKale thanks so much for these links, will certainly be useful! This whole thread has been super useful. Yes indeed, I've found that TinyFPGA BX is fairly popular with EE hobbyists, and my friend has not used them, but mentioned them, about how they work in theory etc, just hasn't really had a chance to get it or play around with them - work, other hobbys etc, so Christmas is a great chance to listen to people and what they're excited about, and surprise them :) – NewToCoding Dec 09 '20 at 12:40

3 Answers3

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That's not an FPGA, that is a complete device that includes an FPGA. To be specific, it's an FPGA development board, that has an FPGA, memory, a button, a USB connector, a bit of voltage regulation.

The FPGA itself is the black square in the center of the board.

As you can see, the board itself has two rows of holes, one on each side. You can solder in pin headers to these.

These pin headers are not included in the offer you've linked to.

Again, this is not "an FPGA without pins", it's "an FPGA development board that doesn't come with pin headers". So, yeah, how would you plug that board into a breadboard?

Also note that I'd think this is pretty cool gift, but it expects the gifted person to want to dive into digital hardware design – that is quite a bit more involved than, say, learning a new programming language.

Marcus Müller
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    This is such a helpful answer to me, a beginner! I have edited the question title. I know the person quite well, and they mentioned FPGAs before, but do not own one yet (doesn't own an FPGA development board), but is very keen with electronics and soldering. – NewToCoding Dec 08 '20 at 10:23
  • Just to make sure I understand correctly, if I buy this "without pins" version, in order to connect it to a breadboard, one would need to solder the header pins, and that is it? I think that's totally fine, as the person I would be gifting this to knows how to solder (so something like in this video: ) – NewToCoding Dec 08 '20 at 10:26
  • yeah, just a bit of easy soldering. – Marcus Müller Dec 08 '20 at 10:34
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    Note that the seller isn't the original designer, so the board might or might not be of lower quality than the original. It is, however, cheaper in the store of the original designer: https://www.crowdsupply.com/tinyfpga/tinyfpga-ax-bx . If you want fast shipping: [Adafruit is a reputable reseller](https://octopart.com/4038-adafruit+industries-97375136?r=sp) and when ordering at mouser or digikey, you can often get together enough cost (like, 50€ in Germany) to get free shipping and things are usually with you within 2 or three days at most. – Marcus Müller Dec 08 '20 at 10:35
  • Thank you so much! Your help has made my day and I'm looking forward learning more about this! – NewToCoding Dec 08 '20 at 10:44
  • Never did the OP say they believe this is an FPGA - _"TinyFPGA BX"_ is the name of the whole device (board). [TinyFPGA](https://tinyfpga.com/) is a whole range of small FPGA devkits. – jaskij Dec 09 '20 at 00:58
  • @JanDorniak they did in an earlier revision of their question – Marcus Müller Dec 09 '20 at 02:50
  • @MarcusMüller ah, didn't check that. Understood. – jaskij Dec 09 '20 at 09:33
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In that context "without pins" means that you wont have any row of pin headers (see the picture below) either provided or soldered to the board.

enter image description here

If you intend to place the board on a breadboard you will have to buy the pins separately and solder them yourself.

The standard breadboard spacing is 2.54 mm and most of the prototyping boards (including the one you linked) adopt it as well.

The plastic bars can easily be splitted/cutted in order to match the number of pins and holes.

When soldering it is easy to slightly melt the plastic making the pins oblique/uneven. To prevent this it is good practice to insert the pins into a breadboard and place the board on top of them. The breadboard will keep everything in firmly place during the soldering process.

DarioP
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  • Thanks a lot! Then I also have to buy some pin headers. Are all pin headers of the same standard - meaning the spacing is the same, and the breadboard hole spacing is also same? I have seen a lot of 2.54mm pin headers while searching, would this work in my case too? – NewToCoding Dec 08 '20 at 10:49
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    2.54mm is the standard breadboard spacing and most of the prototyping boards (including the one you linked) adopt it as well. The plastic bars can easily be splitted/cutted in order to match the number of pins and holes. – DarioP Dec 08 '20 at 10:53
  • Thanks so much! It is so great that online forums exist, all the responses were really helpful. – NewToCoding Dec 08 '20 at 10:57
  • A lot of square pin headers are too big for a lot of breadboards. Pin headers are also available with round pins, which would seem more appropriate for breadboard use. – supercat Dec 08 '20 at 20:00
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You can see similar products sold "with pins": they refer to the 0.1in header pins along the sides. "Without pins" gives you exactly what's shown in the picture, a series of holes along each side instead. Suitable for soldering connections to.

For solderless breadboard use you probably want "with pins".

pjc50
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  • Thank you for the help! Just to make sure I understand correctly, if I buy this "without pins" version, in order to connect it to a breadboard, one would need to colder the header pins, and that is it? I think that's totally fine, as the person I would be gifting this to knows how to solder (so something like in this video: ) – NewToCoding Dec 08 '20 at 10:30
  • Yes, that should be fine. – pjc50 Dec 08 '20 at 12:02