Hi opl3, yeah I think this would be a great project to learn some FPGA coding, especially because you obviously already have an interest in the OPL3.
I chose the Zybo for a couple main reasons:
- I wanted to play around with those dual ARM cores, their interaction with the programmable logic, and dig into low level Linux kernel and driver development
- It along with the Microzed are the two most inexpensive Zynq boards, but the Zybo has the audio codec/DAC and PMOD connectors
It's a very nice board. I think the FPGA is plenty big enough for a beginner board, but it is the smallest of the Zynq series. Once I got my head out of the fog I realized the Zybo will easily fit the OPL3 with plenty of room to spare--I estimate utilization will end up around 40%. But that is a major portion of the chip. If you have the money for it, you might want to upgrade to the Zedboard which as I mentioned earlier in the thread has a much larger FPGA. The codec chip is different, but they both use an i2s data interface. I do the i2c configuration for the chip using software in the ARM--you'd probably do something similar on the Zedboard.
Altera has some similar boards. I just did a quick google search and found this:
http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/ ... ish&No=836You could port this design easily to an Altera chip as all the OPL3 stuff is done in straight RTL, nothing vendor specific. I do use a Xilinx-specific PLL to generate the 12.727MHz clock down from the 125MHz input clock--I'm sure there's an Altera equivalent.
I will help you as much as I can. I'm also trying to get a couple people at work into FPGA design as well (I work with all software people at my current job). First thing I told them was if you can figure out the damn tool chain and environment, you're halfway there. Haha. Not exactly, but the toolchains for FPGAs are pretty huge pains in the ass.
EDIT: If you do get the Altera board, the interface to the ARM core will be different. That might be a hurdle. The Zybo is definitely the easiest path.