FPGA Programming

[mabdinur85]

Hi I'm new and wanted to start several small scale projects with the Epiphany and Parallela board. I am more interested in the FPGA Hardware Co-design aspect with this system for now before I move to the multi-core epiphany co-processor/ accelerator.

With the Parallela systems can I reprogram the FPGA without it defecting the board? I believe the board manual indicates the FPGA is already programmed with HDMI, eLink, AXI-M/S, etc... But beyond those components can I still add like a soft processor that is accessible; also is the system real-time reconfigurable (seems like Zynq Chips are run-time Reconfigurable according to XILINX)?

I also want to purchase the 5 board setup along with that 3rd party stacking enclosure to make the so called mini-supercomputer for research purposes but I just want to know what are the limitations of such a setup? Can I program all FPGA's through like a single JTAG or each has to be individually flashed? Does it have to be the embedded version or the desktop version is fine? Can I access the stacked epiphany accelerators, the arm processors and the FPGA's through the bus?

Sorry for the newbie questions but this seems like a promising multi-core setup and it can be greatly enhanced by the likes of a Reconfigurable OS that can utilize the FPGA as an adaptive accelerator alongside the Epiphany chip.

Thank you all for the help

[sebraa]

[mabdinur85]

Thanks again you have been most helpful.