TECH Signal 393
Xilinx Spartan II FPGA Bridges PCI Bus to Homebrew 68000 Computer
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A homebrew computer built around a Motorola 68000 at 10 MHz implements a PCI bus using a Xilinx Spartan II FPGA, providing two 32-bit 5-volt PCI slots without bus mastering.
This demonstrates that PCI can be interfaced to the 68K architecture using commodity FPGAs as bridge logic, solving protocol translation between the 68K's asynchronous bus and PCI's synchronous multiplexed protocol. The build is notable for being constructed on protoboard rather than custom PCBs, making the working signal integrity at PCI speeds more remarkable.
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A Xilinx Spartan II FPGA (XC2S100) serves as the PCI bridge between the 68000 bus and two 32-bit 5-volt PCI slots.
The PCI implementation supports interrupts but lacks bus mastering, meaning all data transfers must be initiated by the 68000.
The system successfully interfaces with PCI cards including serial expansion and a Cirrus VGA adapter.
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