My son is a 1st year Computer Engineering student and is interested in using FPGAs for some projects he is working on at home. I am looking for recommendations on what might be best for a beginner. Probably most important are: free/low-cost tools, beginner books, tutorials and/or on-line training, and low-cost dev boards. He is already familiar with 74XX-series logic, Intel 8051 microcontrollers, C/C++ and
Java.
It seems like the two popular brands are Altera and Xilinx. I have already ordered Altera Cyclone II and Altera Cyclone IV boards for $15 and $25 from an eBay seller in Shenzhen, but if Xilinx or another manufacturer would be better, I would try those as well.
Any thoughts/experiences/links that you can share would really be appreciated.
Thanks.