When I think FPGA, company names such as Xilinx, Altera (now Intel), or even Microsemi come to my mind. But there are also other companies such as Anlogic or Lattice Semi that offer FPGA chips. Today I’ve come across another FPGA silicon vendor, namely Efinix, with their Trion T8 FPGA found in XIPS Technology’s tiny FireAnt development board targeting makers and hardware designers. FireAnt specifications: FPGA – Efinix Trion T8 (T8F81C2) with 7384x LE counts, 8x embedded multipliers, 1x low-power oscillator, 1x PLL, 122.88 kbit internal RAM; Package – BGA-81 (5×5 mm) Storage – 8 Mbit serial NOR Flash Expansion – 2x 20-pin headers (soldered or unpopulated) with up to 35 GPIOs Debugging & Programming Micro USB 2.0 port via FTDI FT232HQ USB to serial chip JTAG signals in bottom layer Misc – Onboard 33.333 MHz crystal oscillator for PLL; 6x LEDs including 4 user configurable; 3x buttons (Reset, BTN1, […]
Perf-V is another FPGA based RISC-V Development Board
There are already some RISC-V development boards with silicon featuring RISC-V instruction set such as SiFive’s HiFive1 or Kendryte KD233 board. But beauty of RISC-V is that you can customize the instructions set, and if that’s your goal, an FPGA board provides the flexibility you need. While in theory you could use pretty much any FPGA board with enough logic elements, it may help to get started with boards that are designed for this purpose since the company already ported a RISC-V core to their platform and you can start from there. We’ve already covered a few of those including LicheeTang and Fomu boards, as well as ARIES M100PF PolarFire FPGA system-on-module. Today, I’ve come across another of those RISC-V FPGA board. Meet Perf-V board with the following specifications: FPGA – Xilinx Artix-7 XC7A35T-1FTG256C with 33280 Logic Cells, 90 DSP, 41600 CLBs, 1800 Kbit Block RAM, and 5 CMTs; Optional […]
Amungo NUT2NT+ is an Open Source High Precision GNSS Board (Crowdfunding)
Amungo Navigation NUT2NT+ is an open-source hardware four-channel, all-frequency, GNSS RF-to-bits receiver for precision, satellite-based positioning. Connected to the right antennas, the board can achieve centimeter positioning resolution by connecting to multiple navigation satellite systems including GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, and IRNSS. Amungo claims that while several startups and large companies already offer proprietary GNSS positioning solutions NUT2NT+ is the only open source option in this class of GNSS devices. NUT2NT+ key features and specifications: Receiver chip – NTLab NT1065 4-Channel RF Front-End IC FPGA – Lattice ECP5 with 12K LUTs + 28 DSP blocks (LFE5U-12) opened for custom design USB – 1x USB 3.1 Type-C port via CYUSB3014 USB 3.0 controller: Clock – 10 MHz TCXO, soldered RF inputs – 2x bands dedicated; – 5 dB referred noise floor ADC – 2-bit resolution up to 99 MHz Samples transfer – Continuous full stream, from 10 to 50 Mbytes/sec GNSS […]
Wave Computing Announces the First MIPS Open Source Release
In a surprise announcement last year, Wave Computing revealed their plans to open source MIPS architecture, and more specifically the new MIPS Release 6 architecture. The company has now started to deliver the goods with the release of the first MIPS Open Program components. Specific components of the first release include: MIPS ISA – The latest R6 version of the MIPS 32-and-64-bit architecture, including extensions such as virtualization, multi-threading, SIMD, DSP and microMIPS code compression MIPS Open Tools – Integrated development environment for embedded real-time operating systems and Linux-based systems for embedded products that enable developers to build, debug and deploy applications on MIPS-based hardware and software platforms; MIPS Open Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs)– A complete training program for community members that includes: Getting Started Package – Provides the MIPS FPGA system as a set of Verilog files, plus an overview and instructions on how to use the MIPS […]
Ultra96-V2 96Boards AI Platform Adds Certified WiFi, PMICs, Industrial Temperature Range
Avnet Ultra96 was unveiled last year as one of the four 96Boards AI platforms designed to develop applications leveraging hardware to accelerated artificial intelligence workloads. The 96Boards CE compliant board comes with a Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC, 2GB RAM, a 16GB microSD card, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity and more. The company has now launched an upgraded version with Ultra96-V2 featuring most of the same specifications but with a WiFi & Bluetooth module certified in 75 countries, industrial temperature range, and Infineon’s PMIC’s for additional power control and monitoring. Ultra96-V2 specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC ZU3EG A484 with four Cortex A53 cores, two Cortex-R5 core, Arm Mali-400MP2 GPU, and FPGA Fabric System Memory – 2 GB (512M x32) LPDDR4 Memory Storage – 16 GB MicroSD card + adapter pre-loaded with PetaLinux environment Video Output – Mini DisplayPort (MiniDP) Connectivity – Microchip ATWILC3000 certified 802.11 b/g/n WiFi 4 / Bluetooth […]
Aller Artix-7 FPGA Board with M.2 Interface Fits into a Laptop
A few days ago, we wrote about Nitefury M.2 card equipped with a Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA, and which you can connect to any laptop, board, a computer with a spare M.2 socket. It turns out Numato Lab has done something similar with the Aller board, specifically designed for development and integration of FPGA based accelerated features into other larger designs, and provided in a standard 2280 M.2 form factor M-key slot. Aller FPGA M.2 card key features & specifications: FPGA- Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA (XC7A100T-1FGG484C) with 101,440 Logic cells, ~126K Flip-flops, ~600KiB Block RAM, and 240 DSP slices System Memory – 2Gbit DDR3 (MT41J128M16JT-125:KTR) Storage – On-board 1Gb QSPI flash memory for FPGA configuration Host Interface – 4 lane PCIe Gen1 (2.5GT/s) via M.2 Connector Interface, M-Key Debugging – JTAG header for programming and debugging Security – 1x Trusted Platform Module (AT97SC3205) Misc – 100 MHZ CMOS oscillator, 1x RGB LED […]
PYNQ-Z2 Python FPGA Board Adds Raspberry Pi Header, 24-Bit Audio Codec
PYNQ-Z1 is a board by Digilent powered by Xilinx Zynq-7020 Arm Cortex-A9 + FPGA SoC that’s designed specifically for PYNQ, an open-source project that aims to ease the design of embedded systems with Xilinx Zynq Systems on Chips (SoCs) by leveraging the Python language and libraries. PYNQ-Z2 is very similar to PYNQ-Z1, but it’s made by Taiwanese company TUL, and the board is slightly longer to allow for an extra 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header, and Analog Devices ADAU1761 24-bit audio codec. PYNQ-Z2 board specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq-7020 (XC7Z020-1CLG400C) dual core Arm Cortex-A9 processor @ 650 MHz with FPGA with 13,300 logic slices, each with four 6-input LUTs and 8 flip-flops System Memory – 512MB DDR3 Storage – Micro SD card slot, 16MB QSPI Flash with factory programmed globally unique identifier (48-bit EUI-48/64 compatible). Video – HDMI In and HDMI Out Audio – Mic in, Line Out ADAU1761 codec […]
NiteFury Puts Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA into an M.2 Card (Crowdfunding)
NiteFury is an FPGA development board, but it works differently than most, as RHS Research LLC put a Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA into an M.2 Key M card that you can easily insert into a laptop or mini PC with a 80mm M.2 socket. The board also includes DDR3 memory, and exposes a few configurable I/Os. You can use NiteFury to experiment with Xilinx PCIe IP, but also as FPGA co-processor for example to handle encryption, and encoding/decoding data. NiteFury card specifications: FPGA – Xilinx Artix XC7A200T-2FBG484E delivering up to ~1000 GMAC/s, with 215,360 Logic cells, 33,650 Slices, 269,200 CLB flip-flops, and 740 DSP slices. System Memory – 8 Gbit DDR3 (512 MB x 16) Host Interface – PCIe 4x gen 2 (2 Gb/s) External I/Os Via I/O connectors – 12x I/O including 4x selectable analog or digital – JTAG ready Via PCIe connector – 1x 3.3 V digital I/O (LED), […]