Avnet ZUBoard 1CG is a development board featuring the new entry-level AMD Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ ZU1CG dual-core Cortex-A53 MPSoC with 81K FPGA system logic cells, equipped with 1GB LPDDR4 RAM, as well as SYZYGY connectors and mikroBus expansion for Click boards.
Priced at $159, the board may offer a good opportunity to get started with Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC, as it’s quite cheaper than boards based on ZU3 devices such as Ultra96-V2 or MYD-CZU3EG. Avnet says the board is suitable for artificial intelligence, machine learning, embedded vision, embedded processing, and robotics applications.
ZUBoard 1CG specifications:
- SoC – AMD/Xilinx ZU+ MPSoC ZU1CG with
- Dual Cortex-A53 APU @ up to 1.3 GHz and dual Cortex-R5 RPU @ up to 533 MHz
- 256KB On-chip Memory
- 81,900 FPGA Logic Cells
- System Memory – 1GB LPDDR4 with on-chip ECC
- Storage – 256Mbit QSPI flash, microSD card, both bootable
- Networking – 10/100/1000M Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port
- USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port
- Sensors – Temperature and pressure sensors
- Expansion
- 3x SYZYGY expansion connectors with I2Cm SPI, UART, PCIe, DisplayPort, SATA, etc… via four PS GTR transceivers
- 1x mikroBUS interface for one Mikroelektronika Click expansion board
- Debugging – On-board JTAG and UART debug interface
- Misc – RGB LEDs, LEDs, user slide switch and push-button, battery-backed RTC, FPGA Bitstream Security enabled with ECS and custom power
- Power Management
- Input – 5V via micro USB-C port
- Dialog GreenPAK on/off controller and power sequencer
- TDK μPOL power modules
- Dimensions – TBD
It’s not the first time we cover a board with SYZYGY expansion connectors, but I had completely forgotten about it, and as a reminder, SYZYGY is a standard connector aiming to fill the gap between low speed, low pin-count Digilent PMOD connector, and high-performance, high pin-count VITA 57.1 FMC connector.
Like other Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC platforms, the ZUBoard 1CG runs PetaLinux operating system, and the FPGA fabric can be programmed with Vivado/Vitis. The company expects the board to be used to develop industrial and healthcare IoT systems, embedded vision cameras, AV-over-IP 4K and 8K-ready streaming, hand-held test equipment, consumer, medical applications, and more.
The AMD Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ ZU1CG is a relatively new “cost-optimized” part that was announced last year, which should explain why there aren’t other platforms based on it yet.
Avnet announced the ZUBoard 1CG development board now because they will be demonstrating the solution at the Embedded Vision Summit being held May 17-19, 2022 in Santa Clara, California, USA, but it’s not available yet with pre-orders for $159 starting in the next few days, but shipping only scheduled for Q4 2022. More details may be found on the product page.
Via Hackster.io
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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Looks like the Avnet board is a better option than the AXU2CGB, which is about 2x the cost.
At this price range for the UltraScale+ boards.. the older Zynq eval-boards seem way over-priced.
We still see a few new design starts with Zynq-7000, but I think the value provided by the ZU+ MPSoC makes it the SoC of choice from AMD-Xilinx today.
so that’s just Z70x0’s successor? Pretty neat, but more interesting is that power controller made from GreenPAK.
We actually have two Renesas/Dialog GreenPAK devices on the ZUBoard. We do have a new Sequencer that was recommended by TDK since we are using their uPol devices. The other GreenPAK is an ON/OFF controller that Avnet originally designed for the Ultra96-V2, which we are re-using on ZUBoard. This ON/OFF Controller works with the ZU+ PMU to gracefully bring up and shut down the system power, including system shutdown under Linux control.