GOWIN Semiconductor Category - CNX Software

December 2, 2024 by Debashis Das - No Comments

$20 ATOMIC Display Base is a low-cost HDMI display driver for M5Stack’s ESP32-based Atom IoT controllers

M5Stack has recently launched the M5Stack ATOMIC Display Base, an HDMI display driver designed to emulate traditional SPI TFT-LCD data output using Gowin GW1NR-9C FPGA and a built-in LT8618SX RGB-to-HDMI chip and designed to work with the company’s Atom IoT controller family based on ESP32 wireless microcontrollers. The module supports up to 720p (1280×720) image output with a 24-bit color depth and has an average frame rate of 12–16 FPS. Additionally, it can be paired with ATOM series hosts for various memory and application needs. These features make this compact device suitable for industrial control displays, smart home information screens, educational and conference presentations, and remote monitoring displays. The only downside of this device is that it requires a display with adaptive resolution scaling to avoid compatibility issues. M5Stack ATOMIC Display Base (HDMI display driver) specifications FPGA – Gowin GW1NR-9C (PDF datasheet) FPGA with 8,640 LUTs used to simulate SPI TFT-LCD data […]

November 20, 2024November 23, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2024 – International deals and coupons

While Black Friday and Cyber Monday used to be a US-only event, it changed many years ago, and we’ve been writing about international Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals and coupon codes since 2014, since a large portion of our audience cannot benefit from promotions on Amazon’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday events that will take place from November 21 until December 2 this year. So I’ve gathered some international Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2024 deals and discount coupon codes from relevant manufacturers and popular online stores such as Aliexpress, Banggood, and others. Aliexpress Black Friday and Cyber Monday event Aliexpress’ Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2024 event has already started. There are three periods: Nov 19-21 PST – Warm Up event where users can find and add items to the cart before purchasing during the main event. Nov 22-30 PST – “On Sale” event with discounts up to […]

November 19, 2024November 18, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

High-speed data acquisition with Raspberry Pi Pico 2’s HSTX interface and HDMI to USB 3.0 video capture dongle

Raspberry Pi Pico 2 high-speed data acquisition

We previously explained the HSTX high-speed serial transmit interface of the Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller was mostly useful for video outputs and display interfaces since it can only transmit, and not receive data. But Steve Markgraf found another use case for the HSTX interface – high-speed data acquisition – combining a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 board with the DVI Sock board for Pico and one of those cheap MS2130-based HDMI to USB 3.0 video capture dongles. He managed to stream out up to 75 MB/s of real-time data from an overclocked RP2350 to a host computer with a USB 3.0 port. The Adafruit Feather RP2350 HSTX board should also work, but also not been tested. Steve’s “hsdaoh-rp2350” data acquisition over HDMI firmware is based on the dvi_out_hstx_encoder example from Raspberry Pi using the HSTX interface for DVI output and code by Shuichi Takano implementing the HDMI data island encoding required […]

June 28, 2024July 1, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Sipeed Tang Mega 138K Dock is a lower-cost GOWIN GW5AST FPGA + RISC-V development board

The Sipeed Tang Mega 138K Dock is a low-cost version of the Tang Mega 138K Pro development board launched last year with the GOWIN GW5AST FPGA + RISC-V SoC, two SPF+ cages, a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface, and DVI Rx and Tx ports. The new Tang Mega 138K Dock keeps a GW5AST FPGA SoC but with a 484-ball package that fits on a smaller system-on-module, and does without the SPF+ cages, replaces the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface with a PCIe 2.0 x4 interface, and only uses a single HDMI port for DVI Rx or Tx. Sipeed Tang Mega 138K system-on-module Let’s first have a look at the specifications of the SoM itself: SoC FPGA – GOWIN GW5AST-LV138FPG484A with 138,240 LUT4 1,080 Kb Shadow SRAM (SSRAM) 6,120 Kb Block SRAM (BSRAM) Number of BSRAM – 340 298x DSP slices 12x PLLs 16x global clocks 24x HCLK 8x transceivers at 270Mbps to […]

June 26, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

GOWIN GW5AT-15 low-cost FPGA provides high-speed video interfaces up to 4K at 120 FPS

GOWIN Semiconductor has just announced the “Arora V” GW5AT-15 FPGA designed for high-speed video interfaces up to 4K at 120 FPS in space-constrained consumer and automotive applications. Manufactured with TSMC’s 22nm LP process, the new FPGA offers high-performance 12.5 Gbps SerDes, PCIe 3.0, MIPI CPHY, and DPHY interfaces. The GW5AT-15 FPGA also provides 15K LUTs of programmable logic, 118kbit of shadow SRAM, 630kbit of block SRAM (BSRAM), optional 64Mbit or 128Mbit of pseudo-SRAM (PSRAM), and optional 8Mbit of NOR Flash in a tiny 4.9mm x 5.3mm WLCSP package. Target applications include AR/VR headsets, 4K gaming tablets, and car infotainment systems. GOWIN GW5AT-15 FPGA specifications: FPGA Fabric 15120 logic elements (LUT4) 118kbit of shadow SRAM 630kbit of block SRAM (BSRAM) arranged as 35 x 18kbit 28x DSP slices, 12x DSP Lite slices PSRAM GW5ART-15: 64Mbit (in MG132P package) or 128Mbit (in CM90P package) of pseudo SRAM (PSRAM) GW5ANRT-15: 64Mbit PSRAM DDR […]

January 3, 2024January 2, 2024 by Debashis Das - 5 Comments

Sipeed Tang Primer 25K board features 23,040 Logic Cells for FPGA prototyping and development

Sipeed Tang Primer 25K Features 23,040 Logic Cells for Efficient FPGA Prototyping and Development

Sipeed has recently introduced the Tang Primer 25K, an FPGA board powered by Gowin Semi GW5A-LV25MG121 chip. This board features 23,040 LUTs, USB Host capability, and an optional SDRAM module that unlocks vintage gaming. We have previously covered many FPGA boards like Sipeed Tang Mega 138K Pro, Fudan Micro JFM7K325T, ILYGO T-FPGA, and many other development boards by Sipeed including the Sipeed Tang Nano 20K with a Gowin GW2A FPGA. You can check those out if interested. The Tang Primer 25K development board is divided into the 25K SoM Board and the 25K Dock Board together they offer a comprehensive set of features: GW5A-LV25MG121 specifications: 23040 LUT4 23040 Registers (FF) 28x 18×18 Multipliers 6x PLLs Memory/Storage: 64Mbit NOR Flash 180K Distributed S-SRAM 1008K B-SRAM (bits) 56 Number of B-SRAM I/O Interfaces: 3x PMOD 40-pin header 2x buttons 8x I/O banks 75x General IO MIPI IO – 4lane Data USB Ports: […]

December 31, 2023December 31, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

2023 Year in review – Top 10 posts, statistics, and what to expect in 2024

It’s the last day and last article of the year, so we will look at some highlights of 2023, some traffic statistics on the CNX Software website, and speculate what interesting developments may happen in 2024. Looking back at 2023 The semiconductor shortage that had happened since 2020 started to fade away in early 2023, and supplies for most electronics components and devices seem to be adequate at this time, so that was a bright spot this year, and hopefully, it will stay that way in 2024 despite geopolitical tensions. We did not have any super exciting new Arm application processors from Rockchip, Amlogic, or Allwinner announced this year, although the Amlogic S928X penta-core Cortex-A76/A55 CPU started to show up in some 8K TV boxes. The launch of the Raspberry Pi 5 SBC with a Broadcom BCM2712 quad-core Cortex-A76 processor was probably the main highlight for Arm on this side […]

November 19, 2023November 20, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

International Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2023 deals and coupon codes

We’ve been writing about international Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals and coupon codes since 2014, as US-centric promotions such as Amazon’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are not always available to the international audience of CNX Software. So once again, we’ve searched at Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2023 international promotions and discount codes from specific manufacturers as well as popular online stores such as Aliexpress, Banggood, and others. Aliexpress Black Friday and Cyber Monday event Aliexpress will have a Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) event in 2023, but we have limited details at this time since it will only start on November 23, contrary to some of the other deals we’ll feature below which are already up and running. But the event will have two periods: Nov 20-22 PT – Warm Up event where users can find and add items to the cart before purchasing during the […]