@vbus@computerfairi.es A better person than me to ask would be my fiancée @DX_MON maybe she can chime in.

@vbus@computerfairi.es So.. my first piece of advise is that.. Vivado might provide a nice-looking IDE and good integration with Xilinx's IP core system ('pcore's), but for more than simple stuff, it's a steaming pile and you're better learning the command line synthesis tools such as XSE, and PAR

Second piece is that you want to get a couple of good devkit boards such as the ArtyZ7 by Digilent, which features a multi-mode part - half of the Xilinx Zynq is FPGA and half is real ARM CPU which can run Linux. This makes building hardware and testing it far easier as you remove a lot of uncertainty this way.

Once you've spent some time with those kinds of tools, then you can either go to pure FPGA gear (Spartan 6, Kintex, Artix) in the form of other dev boards, or you can try and make your own. If you make your own, I suggest strongly that you start with a Spartan 6 part, and use the ADP5052 as the power supply controller as this part is specifically made to power these FPGAs.

@DX_MON @lethalbit thank you! I'll keep the Artyz7 in mind, although I'm not actually sure which board they're going to make us use in the course. I just know it's going to be Xilinx

@vbus@computerfairi.es @lethalbit@gensoukyou.jp.net Fair enough - If you have any questions or issues around using Xilinx hardware then please don't hesitate to ask me further :) my thesis project involved designing and building a graphics interface for a Xilinx Spartan 3E board, so I have experience I'm willing to share.

I would suggest as you know you're going to be using Xilinx kit, and as the ArtyZ7 and similar boards are relatively cheap off reputable electronics distributors such as Farnell and DigiKey, that you buy one anyway to become more familiar with the tools, process and languages - godknows I wish I'd done this when I was studying.