The Red Pitaya board was first introduced in 2013 as an Xilinx Zynq 7010 SoC FPGA board designed as a high-performance tool acting as an oscilloscope, spectrum analyser, waveform generator, and more.
I hadn’t heard about the company much this then, but they must have been doing alright, since Red Pitaya has just started taking pre-orders for the STEMlab 125-14 PRO Gen 2 Starter Kit based on the same AMD Zynq-7010 SoC FPGA, and the STEMlab 125-14 PRO Z7020 Gen 2 Starter Kit with a more powerful Zynq-7020 device.
STEMlab 125-14 PRO Gen 2 specifications:
- SoC FPGA (one or the other)
- Xilinx Zynq 7010
- CPU – Dual-core Cortex-A9 clocked up to 667 MHz
- FPGA fabric – 28K logic cells, 80x DSP slices
- Memory – 2.1 Mbit block RAM
- Xilinx Zynq 7020
- CPU – Dual-core Arm Cortex-A9 processor
- FPGA – 85K logic cells, 220x DSP slices
- Memory – 4.9 Mbit Block RAM
- Xilinx Zynq 7010
- System Memory
- Z7010 – 512 MB RAM
- Z7020 – 1GB RAM
- Storage
- MicroSD card slot up to 32GB
- eMMC or SQPI flash via E3 expansion module
- Networking – Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port
- USB – 2x USB Type-C ports, one for power, one for console interface
- RF inputs
- 2x SMA connectors with 14-bit ADC @ 125MS/s with up to 60 MHz bandwidth
- Voltage Range – +/- 1V | +/- 20V
- Input Coupling AC/DC
- Input Impedance – 1 MΩ
- RF outputs
- 2x SMA connectors with 14-bit DAC @ 125MS/s with up to 60 MHz bandwidth
- Voltage Range – +/- 1V @ 50 Ω | +/- 2V @ Hi-Z
- Load Input Impedance – 50 Ω
- Short-circuit protection
- Typical rising/falling time – 10 V / 17 ns
- Synchronization
- External trigger input and outputs
- Daisy-chain connection – S1 & S2 USB-C up to 500 Mb/s
- Expansion Connectors (E1, E2, E3)
- Z7010 – 16x digital I/Os @ 3.3V
- Z7020
- 22x digital I/Os @ 3.3V
- 8x high-speed differential pairs (E3)
- 4-channel 12-bit analog inputs up to 3.5V, 100 kS/s
- 4-channel 8-bit analog outputs up to 1.8V, 3.2 MSa/a, 160 kHz bandwidth
- Communications interfaces – I2C, SPI, UART, CAN @ 3.3V or 5V
- External ADC clock via E3 module
- Debugging – JTAG connector
- Misc – Status LED
- Power Supply – 5V/3A via USB-C port (but a 5V/5A adapter is provided)
- Dimensions – TBD
The full kit includes the Zynq 7010/7020 board, a microSD card preloaded with the Linux-based Red Pitaya OS, a 5V/5A USB Type-C power supply, an Ethernet cable, two 100 MHz oscilloscope probes, and two SMA-BNC adapters.
Red Pitaya OS includes a list of web-based applications usable from a Linux or Windows PC:
- Oscilloscope & Signal Generator
- Arbitrary Waveform Manager
- Spectrum Analyzer
- Logic Analyzer
- Bode Analyzer
- Impedance Analyzer
- LCR meter
- Streaming
- X-Channel Streaming
- RF Signal Recording and Playback Script
- SDR applications
- Vector Network Analyzer
- PyRPL open-source software for FPGA boards with analog interfaces for measurement and control
There’s extensive documentation for the software and earlier generation Red Pitaya Boards, but the hardware documentation for the new board is still a work in progress and incomplete.
The new Red Pitaya STEMlab 125-14 PRO Gen 2 starter kits can be pre-ordered for 649 Euros (Zynq 7010) or 899 Euros (Zynq 7020) with shipping scheduled to start by October 2025.
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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More boards are coming soon, part of the STEMlab TI family.
Two versions of the board will be available:
Both models also include: