Programming an FPGA?

I want to program an FPGA on a board that has a socket (zif etc or whatever is applicable) for said FPGA, from which it can be removed and reattached without soldering. I want to know where I can get a board suitable for programming an FPGA in this way?

Once the FPGAs have been programmed they will be attached to another different PCB via solder.

I wish to essentially program the FPGA in a similar way that it is possible to program an EPROM.

I wish to use VHDL if at all possible.

Solution

FPGAs are not programmed like an EPROM - their internals are completely volatile. In system use, they are 'configured' from some other non-volatile memory. For example, many can interface directly to a standard serial flash device to load that configuration.

This non-volatile memory is the device which you need to "program" in some fashion. For example:

before soldering, using some external agency
using JTAG (if it has such an interface).
Or, you can load a configuration into the FPGA over JTAG which then allows you to program the flash using the FPGA!