fpga News - Page 22 of 33 - CNX Software

April 9, 2018April 9, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

TinyFPGA BX is a Tiny Open Source Hardware iCE40 FPGA Board that Fits into a Breadboard (Crowdfunding)

Last Friday, I wrote about Fipsy, a $10 breadboard-friendly FPGA board powered by Lattice Semi MachXO2 FPGA with 256 LUTs, but I then remember I had covered a board somewhat similar with TinyFPGA board last year based on either the same MachXO2-256 (TinyFPGA A1), or a slightly more powerful MachXO2-1200 FPGA (TinyFPGA A2). It happens the developer is now running a crowdfunding campaign on Crowdsupply for TinyFPGA BX board, which can be used with a breadboard, and is powered by Lattice Semi ICE40LP8K FPGA that will offer more flexibility thanks to 7,680 LUTs. TinyFPGA BX specifications: FPGA – Lattice Semi ICE40LP8K FPGA with 7,680 four-input look-up-tables, 128 KBit block RAM, Phase Locked Loop Storage – 8 MBit of SPI Flash Expansion 2x 14-pin header for I/Os, GND and Vin 21x solder pads on back of the board USB – 1x micro USB 2.0 FS port for programming Oscillator – 16 […]

April 6, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Fipsy is a $10 Breadboard-Friendly FPGA Board for Education (Crowdfunding)

We’ve already seen several cheap FPGA boards in the past with the $25 miniSpartan3 (Xilinx), $34 Spartixed (Xilinx), or 40 Euros Olimex iCE40HX8K-EVB boards (Lattice), but if you have a really tight budget you can now plat with FPGA for just $10 thanks to Fipsy board. With its 256 LUTs Lattice Semi MachXO2 FPGA, you’ll be limited to what you can do for specific projects, but it could be useful to teach yourself or students FPGA programming, especially it also happens to be breadboard-friendly. Fipsy specifications: FPGA – Lattice Semiconductors MachXO2 (LCMXO2-256HC-4SG32C) FPGA @ 269 MHz max. with 256 LUTs, 2 kbit Distributed RAM, 32 LABs (Logic Array Blocks) Programmable by SPI and I2C Expansion – 2x 10-pin header supporting various interfaces including: LVCMOS 3.3/2.5/1.8/1.5/1.2 LVTTL LVDS Bus-LVDS MLVDS RSDS LVPECL SSTL 25/18 HSTL 18 Schmitt trigger inputs, up to 0.5 V hysteresis Misc – Onboard LED Operating Supply Voltage – 3.3 […]

March 19, 2018March 28, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

96Boards Unveils Four A.I. Developer Platforms: HiKey 970, Ultra96, ROCK960 PRO & Enterprise Edition

Many new processors include a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) – aka Neural Network Accelerator (NNA) – in order to speed up talks associated with artificial intelligence, such as object or other patterns recognitions. With Linaro Connect Hong Kong 2018, 96Boards has just unveiled four development boards specifically designed for artificial intelligence solution with Hikey 970 powered by Hisilicon Kirin 970 processor, Ultra96 based on Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ ZU3EG ARM+ FPGA SoC, and ROCK960 PRO & Enterprise Edition featuring the upcoming Rockchip RK3399Pro processor. Hikey 970 Preliminary specifications: SoC – Kirin 970 with 4x Cortex A73 @ 2.36GHz, 4x Cortex A53 @ 1.8GHz, Arm Mali G72-MP12 GPU, NPU with 256MAC/cycle @ 960MHz System Memory – 6GB 1866MHz, 4 Channel LPDDR4x Storage -64GB UFS storage, micro SD card slot Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 1080p60 Camera – 4 lanes CSI + 2 lanes CSI Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, wireless module, […]

January 30, 2018January 30, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

UltraZed-EG SoM and Starter Kit Feature Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ ZU3EG MPSoC

Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ Arm Cortex A53 + FPGA MPSoCs were announced in 2015, with actual products launched in early 2017 such as AXIOM development board or Trenz Electronic TE0808 UltraSOM+ system-on-module which are based on the ZU9EG model, and cost several thousand dollars. Recently, I wrote about Mycroft Mark II smart speaker based on a “quad core Xilinx processor”, and initially I assumed it was an Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoCs since those are the only Xilinx “quad core processors” I know of, but now I think it must be an unannounced part, since the company can’t provide the exact part number, and the price would be too low. Nevertheless, this lead me to check out if there was any lower cost boards based Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC with four Arm Cortex A53 cores, and ZU2EG is the entry-level part that matches this description. I could not find a ZU2EG development board, […]

January 12, 2018January 12, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Quokka IoT FPGA Board is Programmable with C# Language (Crowdfunding)

Quokka FPGA IoT Controller is a board based on Altera Cyclone IV FPGA with a WiPy module for connectivity, and various I/Os that allows you to make robotics projects for example. While you could program the FPGA using VHDL, the developer – Evgeny Muryshkin – also designed Quokka Development Toolkit (QDT), a cloud-based SaaS, allowing to program FPGA with a high-level programming language, currently C#, so that software people can more easily become involved in FPGA development. Quokka IoT (preliminary) hardware specifications: FPGA – Intel Altera Cyclone IV, 6K logic elements, EP4CE6E22C8 Clock – 50MHz Connectivity – WiFi via WiPy module Expansion 40x GPIO (3 banks by 8 pins, with direction and voltage (3.3V or 5V) configuration, 16 raw IO pins 3.3V) 2x Dual Channel 10 bit ADC (3.3V) 2x Dual Channel 10 bit DAC (3.3V) H-Bridge for DC motors with support for external power Power Supply – 5-24V DC input […]

January 11, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

$34 SmartFusion2 Maker Board Arm Cortex-M3 + FPGA Board Supports ESP32 & ESP8266 Modules

Xilinx Zynq SoCs are probably the most well-known FPGAs with ARM cores, as their Cortex A9/A53 cores can run Linux, but they are not the only ones. Microsemi launched SmartFusion2 SoC comprised of FPGA fabric and an Arm Cortex-M3 core in 2013, as well as a $300 development kit. The company has now partnered with Digikey to launch SmartFusion2 Maker Board, a low-cost evaluation platform for the SoC that comes with Gigabit Ethernet, a USB port, a connector for ESP8266 module, PCB footprint for ESP32 module, among other features like a light sensor, LEDs, and buttons. SmartFusion2 maker board (M2S010-MKR-KIT) main features & specifications: SoC – Microsemi SmartFusion2 M2S010 SoC with: Arm Cortex-M3 @ 166 MHz, 6oKB+80KB eSRAM, 256KB eNVM FPGA with 12,084 logic element, 400 Kbits RAM Storage – 16 Mbit SPI Flash Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet via VSC8541 PHY, RJ45 connector Connector for ESP8266 (Sparkfun WRL-13678 – not included) […]

December 20, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Apertus AXIOM Beta Open Source Professional Digital Cinema is Built around MicroZed Board

Apertus AXIOM Beta is a professional digital cinema camera built around FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) and open hardware licenses. The project started around year 2011 with AXIOM Alpha camera, and AXIOM Beta is the latest iteration powered by MicroZed development board based on Xilinx Zynq 7020 ARM + FPGA SoC, and running Arch Linux ARM. AXIOM Beta developer kit (planned) hardware specifications: “Linux” Board – Xilinx Zynq 7020 based MicroZed board Beta Main Board – Hosts two external medium-speed shield connectors and two high-speed plugin module slot connectors. Image Sensor – 12MP CMV12000 (Used for research and development) via CMV12K ZIF Sensor Board Lens Mount Passive E-mount Ports – USB / USB UART / JTAG / Gigabit Ethernet Modules and Shields Single HDMI Full HD (4:4:4) output at up to 60 FPS Dual 6G SDI output (in development) 3x PMOD debug module LED matrix debug module Genlock, Trigger, […]

December 19, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Intel Stratix 10 MX FPGA Integrates High Bandwidth Memory DRAM (HBM2)

Intel started sampling (Altera) Stratix 10 ARM + FPGA SoC in late 2016, and now the company has announced the availability the new Stratix 10 MX FPGA family wih High Bandwidth Memory DRAM (HBM2). The latter allow Stratix 10 MX FPGAs to offer up to 10 times the memory bandwidth when compared with standalone DDR memory solutions. The higher bandwidth will be useful for multi-function accelerators for high-performance computing (HPC), data centers, network functions virtualization (NFV), and broadcast applications. Intel / Altera Stratix 10 MX SoC key features and specifications: Processor – Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 MP Core up to 1.5 GHz Logic Density Range – 1.092M LE to 2.073M LE Embedded Memory 3.5 to 8GB HBM2 high-bandwidth DRAM memory 45 Mbit to 90 Mbit eSRAM memory 86 Mbit to 134 Mbit M20K memory 6 Mbit to 11 Mbit MLAB memory Up to 7,920 18 x 19 Multipliers Up to 72 […]