Open-source hardware USB Type-C industrial camera features Lattice Crosslink NX FPGA

Open-source hardware USB Type-C camera

Gaurav Singh, acting as Circuit Valley, has designed an open-source hardware USB 3.0 Type-C industrial camera with three boards: one to capture data through a CMOS sensor,  another based on a Lattice Crosslink NX FPGA to handle image processing, and finally, a board equipped with an Infineon FX3 USB 3.0 controller for sending the video data to the host. This design allows the DIY camera to be extremely flexible, as for instance, you could keep the FPGA and USB board, and simply change the sensor board for a better/different camera. A 3D printable enclosure is also provided, and the camera supports C-mount lenses, so the lens can also be easily changed as required. Here’s what the final result looks like. Camera specifications: Sensor board Sensor for example Sony IMX290, IMX327, or IMX462 Oscillator FPGA/Host board interface – High-density connector with I2C, 4-lane MIPI with clock, I2C, a few other control […]

LimeSDR Mini 2.0 USB SDR board gets an upgrade to Lattice Semi ECP5 FPGA (Crowdfunding)

LimeSDR Mini 2

The LimeSDR Mini is an open-source hardware full-duplex USB SDR board based on Intel Altera Max 10 Altera FGPA that was introduced in 2017 on Crowd Supply and raised close to $2 million US dollars. Since it has been used in various projects including digital TV transmitters. Lime Microsystems is now back on Crowd Supply with the similar-looking LimeSDR Mini 2.0 replacing the MAX 10 FPGA with 16K logic gates with a more powerful and capable Lattice Semiconductor ECP5 FPGA with 44K logic gates while keeping the company’s LMS7002 RF transceiver. LimeSDR Mini 2 specifications: FPGA –  Lattice Semi ECP5 (LFE5U-45F) with 44K logic gates, 108 sysMEM blocks (18kb), 1,944 Kb embedded memory, 351 Kb distributed RAM bits Storage –  4 MB flash memory for data; 2x128KB EEPROM for RF transceiver MCU firmware and data RF Lime Microsystems LMS7002M RF transceiver Tx & Rx SMA connectors Frequency range – 10 […]

iCESugar-nano is a $19 iCE40LP1k FPGA board with 3x PMOD connectors

iCESugar-nano FPGA board

Muse Lab’s iCESugar-nano is a tiny FPGA board based on Lattice Semi iCE40LP1K-CM36 programmable via its USB-C port through on-board iCELink debugger, and exposing I/Os for three standard PMOD connectors. The board is fully supported by Yosys open-source toolchain ( Yosys+ nextpnr + IceStorm), and the onboard debugger supports drag-and-drop programming so that you can just drag the FPGA bitstream into the virtual disk to program it through a USB Type-C cable. iCESugar-nano specifications: FPGA – Lattice Semi iCE40LP1k FPGA with 1280 LUT/8KB SRAM/PLL Storage – 2MB SPI flash (W25Q16) USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming Expansion – 14x usable IOs with 1x 12-pin PMOD connectors and 2x 6-pin PMOD connectors Debugging – On-board iCELink debugger based on Arm Mbed DAPLink Misc – Adjustable clock (8/12/36/72MHz), LED Power Supply – 5V via USB-C port Dimensions – 3.9 x 1.8 cm Documentation, schematic PDF, links to tools, […]

Silicon Witchery S1 module combines nRF52811 Bluetooth SoC with Lattice iCE40 FPGA

Silicon Witchery S1 module

Sweden-based Silicon Witchery S1 is a tiny module combining Nordic Semi nRF52811 Bluetooth LE SoC with Lattice Semi iCE40 FPGA designed for battery-powered applications leveraging DSP and machine learning (ML) at the edge. The S1 module features just four key components in a tiny 11.5 x 6 mm form factor and targets applications requiring “demanding” algorithms while consuming as little energy as possible. Silicon Witchery S1 module specifications: MCU – Nordic Semi nRF52811 Arm Cortex-M4 MCU @ 64 MHz with Bluetooth 5.2 support including Long Range, Thread support. FPGA – Lattice Semi iCE40 FPGA with 5k LUT and DSP blocks. Storage – 32 Mbit flash storage. Integrated antenna, passives, and crystals. I/Os – 20x castellated holes with 8x FPGA IO include I3C, I2C, SPI, and USB. 2x nRF GPIO pins with ADC and low power wake. SWD pins for debugging Power Supply Lithium battery charging and monitoring. 3x adjustable Vout […]

CaribouLite RPi HAT open-source SDR Raspberry Pi HAT tunes up to 6 GHz (Crowdfunding)

Raspberry Pi HAT SDR 6 GHz

CaribouLite RPi HAT is an open-source dual-channel software-defined radio (SDR) Raspberry Pi HAT – or rather uHAT – that works in the sub-GHz ISM range and optionally the 30 MHz – 6 GHz range for the full version. Developed by Israel-based CaribouLabs, the micro HAT is equipped with a Lattice Semi ICE40LP1K FPGA, a Microchip AT86RF215 RF transceiver, two SMA antenna connectors, a Pmod expansion connector, and designed for any Raspberry Pi board with a 40-pin GPIO header. CaribouLite RPi HAT specifications: FPGA – Lattice Semi ICE40LP with 1.28 kLE RF Chipset – Microchip AT86RF215 Sub-GHz / 2.4GHz transceiver Qorvo’s RFFC5072 integrated Mixer IC (for full version only) Tuning Range CH1 Full version – 30 MHz – 6 GHz ISM version – 2.4 – 2.4835 GHz CH2 – Sub-1GHz Max Sampling Rate – 4 MSPS ADC/DAC Resolution – 13-bit Max RF Bandwidth – 2.5 MHz Transmit Power – up to […]

Cynthion board enables USB Hacking through Lattice ECP5 FPGA (Crowdfunding)

LUNA USB Hacking board

Update 16/02/2023: The LUNA board has been renamed to Cynthion, but the gateware framework continues to be called LUNA. Several USB hacking/debugging boards were launched in 2020 either based on microcontrollers or FPGA with the likes of Tigard (FTDI FT2232HQ), Ollie (STM32F042), Glasgow Interface explorer (Lattice Semiconductor iCE40), or Protocol Droid (STM32). All those were launched on Crowd Supply, and there’s now another one with LUNA “multi-tool for building, analyzing, and hacking USB devices” based on a  Lattice Semiconductor LFE5U-12F ECP5 FPGA that raised over $100,000 in a few days. Cynthion hardware specifications: FPGA- Lattice Semiconductor LFE5U-12F ECP5 FPGA with 12K LUTs System Memory – 64 Mbit (8 MiB) RAM for buffering USB traffic or for user applications Storage – 32 Mbit (4 MiB) SPI  flash for PC-less FPGA configuration USB – 3x High-Speed USB interfaces, each connected to a USB3343 PHY capable of operating at up to 480 Mbps. […]

Glasgow Interface Explorer is an iCE40 FPGA based hardware debugging tool (crowdfunding)

Glasgow Interface Explorer

We’ve seen some pretty interesting boards for hardware hackers and reverse engineers in recent months with the likes of Ollie and Tigard USB debug boards that allow interfacing various hardware interfaces and/or flashing firmware to different types of target boards. Here’s another one: Glasgow Interface Explorer. Based on Lattice Semi iCE40 FPGA, the board is described as being “designed for hardware designers, reverse engineers, digital archivists, electronics hobbyists, and anyone else who wants to communicate with a wide selection of digital devices with minimum hassle”. Glasgow Interface Explorer specifications: FPGA – Lattice Semiconductor iCE40HX8K FPGA USB – 1x USB-C port connected to FX2 high-speed USB interface capable of 480 Mbps throughput I/O headers 2x 8-channel I/O banks with 16 highly flexible I/O Each I/O bank comes with A dedicated programmable linear voltage regulator, configurable from 1.8 V to 5 V and providing up to 150 mA of power A dedicated […]

Precursor is a mobile, open hardware, dual FPGA development kit (Crowdfunding)

Precursor mobile open-source dual FPGA devkit

Sutajio Ko-usagi PTE LTD has launched some interesting hardware on Crowd Supply over the years include Novena open-source hardware Arm laptop, and Fomu FPGA USB board. The company is now back with another project: Precursor, a mobile, open-source hardware devkit powered by not one, but two FPGA with Xilinx Spartan 7-Series FPGA, plus a super-low-power Lattice iCE40 UP5K FPGA for deep-sleep system management. The device also comes with a display, battery, and keyboard that make it looks like older Palm or Blackberry phones. Precursor FPGA devkit specifications: FPGA Xilinx XC7S50 primary System on Chip (SoC) FPGA with -L1 speed grade for longer battery life; tested with 100 MHz VexRISC-V, RV32IMAC + MMU, 4k L1 I/D cache Lattice Semi iCE40UP5K secondary Embedded Controller (EC) FPGA for power, standby, and charging functions; tested with 18 MHz VexRISC-V, RV32I, no cache System Memory – 16MB external SRAM Storage – 128MB flash Display -536 […]