Snickerdoodle Xilinx Zynq ARM + FPGA Board Starts at $55 (Crowdfunding)

While Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ ARMv8 + FPGA SoC is still in development, there are already quite a few Xilinx Zynq-7000 boards on the market today. The cheapest I know of is MYirTech Z-Turn board selling for $99, but krtkl (pronounced “critical“), US a based startup, will soon bring an even cheaper Zynq-7010/7020 board with their Snickerdoodle board currently listed on CrowdSupply platform for $55 and up, plus shipping.

Snickerdoodle board specifications:

• SoC
  • Xilinx Zynq-7010 dual core Cortex A9 processor @ 667 MHz + FPGA with 430K gates or
  • Xilinx Zynq-7020 dual core Cortex A9 processor @ 866 MHz + FPGA with 1.3million gates (~430K ASIC gates)
• System Memory – 512MB or 1GB LPDDR2-800
• Storage – micro SD card slot, 16MB boot flash
• Connectivity via Ti Wilink 8 solution
  • 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n WiFi + Bluetooth 4.0 or
  • Dual band 802.11 b/g/n WiFi (2×2 MIMO) + Bluetooth 4.0
• USB – 1x micro USB port for serial console and mass storage
• Expansion – 6 to 7 headers “up” (as on picture) or “down” (for baseboards) with 154 I/Os either connected to the ARM core (J2) or FPGA core (JA1, JA2, JB1, JB2, and for 7020 JC1 as well), with the remaining two headers for power, Bluetooth audio, USB, JTAG, I2C, and analog inputs.
• Power Supply – 3.7 – 17V DC
• Dimensions – 50.8mm x 88.9mm

The board supports Linux, ROS, FreeRTOS, ArduPilot, OpenCV, etc… The block diagram also shows they’ve stuck an STM32 MCU on the board to handle power, USB, and security/authentication.

It’s clear one of the way they’ve managed to keep the board cheap because they did not include any of the usual ports like HDMI or Ethernet, but instead they’ve chosen to have a more flexible platform, and add these via various baseboards and add-on boards:

• breakyBreaky breakout ($25) – Baseboard to connect the 0.05″ headers from the board, and access 270 pins via makers’ friendly 0.1″ (2.54mm) headers
• shieldBuddy for Arduino ($40) – Add-on board that let you connect Arduino shield to the FPGA board.
• piSmasher single-board computer ($55) – To make it more like a Raspberry Pi with Ethernet, HDMI, and two USB ports
• gryphon autopilot ($300) – Autopilot system for UAV with machine vision, many sensors,  and GPS capabilities
• whiteRhino industrial SBC ($500) – Baseboard with lots of ports, including 5 Gigabit Ethernet, 6 USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, 4 audio jacks, three DB9 connector,  10-LVDS pairs, and more

The boards are expected to ship in March 2016, and shipping is free to the US for most rewards, while you’ll need to add $20 if you want it shipped to somewhere else.

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