fpga

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on GOWIN GW1NRF FPGA Comes with Bluetooth 5.0 LE Radio & 32-bit ARC MCU

GOWIN GW1NRF FPGA Comes with Bluetooth 5.0 LE Radio & 32-bit ARC MCU

GW1NRF Bluetooth FPGA

I first heard about GOWIN Semiconductor last month when I found out about Sipeed Tang Nano FPGA board going for $5 and featuring GOWIN GW1N FPGA. The company has now announced what it claims is the first Bluetooth FPGA on the market with GW1NRF FPGA integrating a Bluetooth 5.0 LE radio and a 32-bit ARC microcontroller beside FPGA fabric. GOWIN GW1NRF-LV4N uSoC FPGA key features and specifications: FPGA Fabric – 4.6K LUTs, 180 Kb block SRAM, and 16 multipliers MCU – 32-bit ARC microcontroller with 48KB IRAM, 48KB DRAM 136KB block ROM, 128KB block OTG Security – AES-128, RNG, Key GEN Power Management – Wake-up timer, pin monitoring Wireless – Bluetooth LE (Low Energy) 5.0 Transceiver with PHY & MAC Power Supply  – 3V or 1.5 V with battery support via on-chip LDO regulator and step-up/step-down DCDC regular Power Consumption – 5nA power disable mode Package – 6x6mm QFN48 package […]

Posted on by Stephen Vicinanza - 1 Comment on Digilent Offers 2 Zynq-Based Linux Development Boards Supporting SYZYGY Expansion

Digilent Offers 2 Zynq-Based Linux Development Boards Supporting SYZYGY Expansion

Digilent Announces SYZYGY high-speed SBCs Digilent has announced two new SBCs that are ultra-high-speed and built to be more modular than its other boards.  The company, which has a great deal of experience in Pmod lower speed FPGA standards has now entered the open-source, SYZYGY high-speed standards with its Eclypse Z7 and the Genesys ZU  development SBCs. Background on the Digilent Zybo FPGA SoC SBC We reported on the Zybo development board FPGA SoC from Digilent and that seems to have lead to the latest format for the Eclypse Z7. Zmod There is also a release planned for the new Zmod modules, built to work with both the Eclypse Z7 and the Genesys ZU  as SYZYGY compliant expansion modules. Opal Kelly and Zmod expansion The Zmods are Opal Kelly module standard, called SYZYGY, first seen in the Opal Kelly SYZYGY Brain-1 SBC. The standard was developed to jump the gap […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on $5 Tang Nano FPGA Board Features GOWIN GW1N “LittleBee” FPGA

$5 Tang Nano FPGA Board Features GOWIN GW1N “LittleBee” FPGA

Last year, we wrote about Lichee Tang FPGA board powered by Anlogic EG4S20 FPGA and targeting RISC-V development for just under $15. The company, now called Sipeed, has made an even cheaper FPGA board with Tang Nano equipped with GOWIN Semi GW1N FPGA part of the company’s LittleBee family. Sipeed Tang Nano Sipeed Tang Nano specifications: FPGA – Gowin GW1N-1-LV FPGA with 1,152 LUT4, 864 Flip-Flops(FF), 72Kbit Block SRAM, 4x B-SRAM, 96Kbit user flash, 1x PLL, 4x I/O banks System Memory – 64Mbit (8MB) 3.3V PSRAM Display – Standard 40-pin RGB LCD interface with on-board screen backlight driver circuit (default normally open, EN pin can be connected to FPGA) USB – USB Type-C port for download and power supply Expansion – 34 I/O ports and power pins on headers (unpopulated), breadboard-compatible Misc – RGB LED, 2x user buttons, 24MHz crystal oscillator Power Supply – 5V via USB-C port (at least […]

Posted on by Stephen Vicinanza - No Comments on Pixblasters MS1 Video LED Controller Outputs HDMI Input to 16K+ LED Video Walls (Crowdfunding)

Pixblasters MS1 Video LED Controller Outputs HDMI Input to 16K+ LED Video Walls (Crowdfunding)

Pixblaster Video LED Controller Pixblasters, a company focused on LED signage and video display, have started a Crowd Supply campaign for their MS1 Video Controller. The Pixblaster MS1 controller can be attached to any laptop or computer with HDMI output (think Raspberry Pi SBC) and control 16,384 LEDs without any programming, physical modifications or soldering. Extreme Scalability The market the MS1 video controller is aimed at is small business and makers, who hadn’t before had a controller with this much scalability.  The company is saying that the MS1 can be daisy-chained together to control hundreds of thousands of LEDs and act as a full video monitor across hundreds of meters of LED strips. Programming The unit can easily and with little technical knowledge connect WS212B-Based addressable LED strips together for a complex output of digital displays, even mirroring a video display in some instances. Target Users The ability to use […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Spartan Edge Accelerator Arduino Compatible Board Combines ESP32 & Spartan-7 FPGA

Spartan Edge Accelerator Arduino Compatible Board Combines ESP32 & Spartan-7 FPGA

Spartan Edge Accelerator

Xilinx Spartan FPGAs have been around for a while, and a few years ago we covered Spartan-6 FPGA boards such as Spartixed and miniSpartan6+.  Seeed Studio has now launched another Xilinx Spartan board with WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. Spartan Edge Accelerator Board follows Arduino UNO form factor and combines a more recent Xilinx Spartan-7 FPGA with Espressif Systems ESP32 WiFi + Bluetooth chip. Spartan Edge Accelerator specifications:  FPGA – Xilinx Spartan-7 XC7S15 FPGA with 12.8K Logic Cells and 360Kb block RAM WiSoC – Espressif Systems ESP32 SoC with 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1  BLE Storage – SPI flash, MicroSD card slot Video Output – Mini HDMI Video Input – CSI Camera Interface with support for OV5640 sensor USB – USB type-C port Expansion Arduino UNO headers (5V) FPGA I/O header DAC output and ADC input header (via 8-bit ADC1173 chip) 2x Grove connectors (I2C and digital I/O) Debugging […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on ULX3S Education Board is Powered by Lattice Semi ECP5 FPGA & ESP32 WiFi/BLE Module

ULX3S Education Board is Powered by Lattice Semi ECP5 FPGA & ESP32 WiFi/BLE Module

ULX3S Lattice ECP5 FPGA Educational Board

A few days ago, we covered the KiCAD designed OrangeCrab open-source hardware board powered by a Lattice Semi ECP5 FPGA, and compliant with Adafruit Feather form factor. It’s turned out there’s another Lattice Semi ECP5 FPGA board that’s also designed with KiCAD and open source hardware. Radiona ULX3S differs are it’s larger and exposes more I/Os since it was specifically designed to meet the meets of the digital logic course at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER) of the University of Zagreb in Croatia. ULX3S specifications: FPGA – Lattice ECP5 LFE5U-85F-6BG381C with 84K LUT System Memory – 32MB SDRAM @ 166 MHz Storage – 4–16MB Quad-SPI Flash for FPGA config and user data storage; MicroSD slot Audio – 3.5 mm jack with 4 contacts (analog stereo + digital audio or composite video) Video – Digital video (GPDI General-Purpose Diferential Interface) with 3.3V-5V I2C bidirectional level shifter Display – […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on OrangeCrab is an Open Source Hardware, Feather-Compatible Lattice ECP5 FPGA Board

OrangeCrab is an Open Source Hardware, Feather-Compatible Lattice ECP5 FPGA Board

Lattice ECP5 Feather board

Lattice ECP5 FPGA powered OrangeCrab is the work of Greg Davill who designed the Adafruit Feather-compatible board in KiCAD, crowdsourced schematics/PCB checking and published his progress on Twitter, and published the files  of the open source hardware board on Github. OrangeCrab board hardware specifications: FPGA – Lattice ECP5 25/45/85 variants System Memory – Up  to 8Gbit DDR3 Memory (x16) Storage – 128Mbit QSPI FLASH Memory (Bitstream + User storage), 4-bit MicroSD socket USB – Micro USB connector, full-speed direct USB connection to FPGA Programming – 10-pin FPGA programming header Expansion – I/O’s broken out via 30 through holes: GPIO, SPI, I2C, Analog, … 7x diff pairs, 1x single ended only Misc – Reset Button, charge LED (Green:  external power, Yellow: when charging, No color: when running off battery), 48MHz Oscillator Power Supply – 5V via USB port, battery header for LiPo battery + battery charger chip Dimensions – Adafruit Feather […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments on Intel Agilex SoC FPGA Features Four Arm Cortex-A53 Cores

Intel Agilex SoC FPGA Features Four Arm Cortex-A53 Cores

Intel Agilex SoC FPGA

Intel announced their new Agilex FPGA family manufactured with a  10nm process earlier this April, but it only caught my eyes recently when I saw “Agilex SoC FPGA” listed in Linux 5.2 Arm’s changelog. The Intel SoC FPGA is there simply because it comes with four Arm Cortex-A53 cores. Three family have been announced so far, although the later is shown as coming soon: Intel Agilex F-Series FPGAs and SoCs – Transceiver support up to 58 Gbps, increased DSP capabilities, high system integration, and 2nd Gen Intel Hyperflex architecture for a wide range of applications in Data Center, Networking, and Edge. Option to integrate the quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor. Intel Agilex I-Series SoC FPGAs – Optimized for high performance processor interface and bandwidth intensive applications. Coherent attach to Intel Xeon processors with Compute Express Link, hardened PCIe Gen 5 support and transceiver support up to 112 Gbps. Intel Agilex M-Series […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC