1.0 value drone

Thanks, Arthur, I appreciate the reply. Since you mention errors: In the CMOD-S7 reference manual, on page... oh, wait, web documents don't have page numbers (ok, I'll get off that soapbox now)... in Figure 6.1, the RGB LEDs are upside-down. The cathodes connect to the FPGA outputs.

>>Mid-performance commodity programmable devices still have plenty of value. Unfortunately, I don't think that either Intel or AMD are particularly interested in this market. Ain't that the truth! In my day job we used Spartan-3A in almost every design for "glue" logic because it offered a huge I/O count with moderate logic at a very low cost. Now the small 7-series parts barely have enough I/O but the logic utilization is well below 10%. Although I've never been a fan of Quartus, I made a study of Cyclone 10 LP as a lower-cost alternative, but supply chain and internal IP issues made it impractical. Thanks for the comments on Terasic. I think I looked at them briefly a while back but at the time I was unwilling to wrestle with Quartus. Maybe it's time to look again. I agree that selectable I/O voltage would be a strong feature. All those nice diff pairs and they can't do LVDS. Tsk, tsk.

I'm in complete agreement with the OP as far as what I'm looking for in a Cmod-style board: A minimum-cost "black box" with lots of I/O that allows me to create fairly complex custom functions without having to design and assemble a PCB with a BGA footprint for the FPGA. Pushbuttons, LEDs, 7-segment or LCD displays, etc. just make the module much bigger than it needs to be. It's the main reason I choose Cmod over Basys or Arty. If I really need those doodads, it's easy enough to add them externally or plug in a PMOD. The other thing I'm looking for is signal integrity. JColvin hinted that Digilent is aware that only one ground pin at one corner of a 48-pin DIP is a sad joke to anyone who deals with SI issues. My most recent project using a CMOD-A7 included an external parallel-to-LVDS IC driving an LCD. Those 28 I/Os changing simultaneously at 72 MHz create a fabulous amount of ground bounce. Even after adding the two PMOD ground pins, setting all the I/Os to SLOW (because 7-series dropped QUIETIO), inserting series resistors, etc. I'm still fighting it.

I like Digilent products, but I have a minor complaint: Unless I've missed the link, the only "user manual" for the CMOD S7 is a web page. I have a strong preference for PDF documentation, so I can (1) keep a copy on my local disk for times when I don't have internet access; (2) print a selected page or two for doing a highlighter-check against my application drawings; and (3) archive it along with the other reference data for a project. Yes, I know I can use wget or similar to grab the html and graphic hierarchy, or print the web page to a pdf (and get a document with graphics split across multiple pages). Web pages are fine for product advertising and feature summaries, but PDF is the gold standard for technical manuals. Please consider generating the PDF manual first, then converting it to a web page if you feel you must. Thank you.