On this cartridge, I'm at the stage of trying to create the PCB. In my last post on this subject, I was at the beginning of creating the PCB and I had absolutely no idea whether I would manage to make something clean. Well, now I have the answer:
All the tracks are routed. I still have a bit of work to do on improving the routing, with no major functional impact — more about streamlining. While working, I switched to version 10 of KiCad. I've known KiCad for over 20 years. A lot of things have improved, but I feel that since it went into 'semi-professional' mode, there are ways of doing things that have more to do with professional software than with solutions accessible to the greatest number of people.
A small message to the KiCad developers: By all means, improve its operation and features, but don't turn it into a clone of professional solutions that require months of training and practice to create an amateur circuit. You're now moving a bit too far away from the accessibility that has made KiCad successful so far. As for me, I think I won't update KiCad any further, especially since dark theme is finally available with version 10.
Of course, I have absolutely no idea whether this board will work or not. This is my first implementation of an Efinix FPGA. But you have to start somewhere. And, as a result, this allows me to compare this type of FPGA with equivalent FPGAs from Gowin. While it's true that Gowin FPGAs are much more expensive than Efinix FPGAs, the 144-pin Gowin version equivalent to the Efinix version used here, requires far fewer external components to get it running and is, in my opinion, easier to implement on a circuit. The Gowin module I made worked fine with just a two-layer board. Here, I was forced to go with a four-layer board.
If this Efinix FPGA implementation works, I will nevertheless have a functional template for implementing the component. This will allow me to create more complex designs more easily in the future with these components.
