Find a suitable reference design

One of the first things many programmable logic developers do at the start of a project is to find a reference design--something containing most of what the final product would have, and more importantly, something that is proven to work.

This is akin to the modular design concept of not reinventing the wheel and building on an existing, working example. Important questions to ask might be:

• Does this design contain all the interfaces I need?
• Has it been tested in hardware and/or in simulation?
• How much does it cost?
• What do I need to test it (verify that it works as promised) e.g. additional software, hardware components?
• Where/How do I obtain those extra components?

With the above in mind, we implemented a "Reference Design Search" to see if it can help our users.
Do have a look at the preliminary screenshots (on our Facebook page or the thumbnails below).
Happily, George, who sparked the idea in the first place, seems to like what he sees so far.

The flow is as follows:
First, the landing search page:
Enter something that you'd like to implement e.g. "embedded system USB"

Then, have a look at the initial results:
... shows how many reference designs and boards loosely match your search keywords.

Next, find out more about the designs and boards:
We'll be adding columns like Price and User Ratings soon, as well as information on all PLD vendors, not just the one you see in the screenshot.

Want to be more specific? Then try the advanced search, which we are still tweaking:
"Must have" and "Maybe" are the options presented for each feature, while a few guesses are made about the user's preferences. Those guesses are really the fun and difficult parts of this search feature--Kirvy is spending many hours on it to come up with something good.

Please let us know what you think, especially with regards to what aspects of a reference design you would like to know about, before choosing one.

Essentially, the most rewarding result of this feature would be helping a developer find good working examples.

Harnhua