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, BTN2)
- Power Supply – 5V via micro USB port; 3.3 V LDO regulator
- Dimensions – 51.4 x 18.3 mm
FireAnt comes with a demo firmware that’s a 4-bit counter with configurable counting speed by pressing BTN1 to accelerate, and BTN2 to decelerate. The board can be programmed with Efinity IDE with Verilog HDL and runs on Windows and Linux (Ubuntu/Red Hat Enterprise/CentOS) operating systems. The samples and documentation can be found on the project’s Github repository.
FireAnt board has just launched on Crowd Supply with a $5,000 funding target. Rewards start at $29 for the super early bird without soldered headers, and they have bundles with up to five boards for $130. Shipping is free to the US, but adds $8 to $10 to the rest of the world. Backers should expect their board to be shipped around mid September if everything goes according to plan.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Verilog HDL is not the same hardware description language than VHDL. Verilog and VHDL are two different language.
And Efinix EDA seems to support only verilog. You can synthesize VHDL with it.
Hi Martoni,
The Efinity Software supports both Verilog and VHDL.