Category: Xilinx Spartan

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on $50 Mimas V2 Spartan 6 FPGA Development Board Comes with a VGA Port, 64MB RAM

$50 Mimas V2 Spartan 6 FPGA Development Board Comes with a VGA Port, 64MB RAM

Just last week, I wrote about miniSpartan3, an FPGA board powered by Xilinx Spartan 3A. It costs as low as $25, features an HDMI output port, but lacks RAM. Numato Lab’s Mimas V2 is another low cost FPGA board with a more powerful Spartan 6 FPGA, 512 Mb LPDDR memory, and instead of HDMI output, a VGA port has been included on the board. The board can be used for prototype development, signal processing, learning digital electronics and as an educational tool for schools and universities. Technical specifications: FPGA – Xilinx Spartan XC6SLX9 in CSG324 package System Memory – 512Mb LPDDR @ 166 MHz (MT46H32M16LF/W949D6CBHX6E) Storage – 16 Mb SPI flash memory (M25P16) + micro SD card slot Video Output – VGA connector Audio – Stereo jack USB – 1x mini USB 2.0 port for on-board flash programming Expansion Headers – Four 6×2 header with access to 32 I/O pins, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on miniSpartan3 is a $25 Xilinx Spartan 3A FPGA Board with HDMI Output

miniSpartan3 is a $25 Xilinx Spartan 3A FPGA Board with HDMI Output

Last year, Scarab Hardware launched miniSpartan 6+, a low cost FPGA board featuring Xilinx Spartan6 LX9, on Kickstarter. Since the, they’ve made a third iteration of the board with either Spartan6 LX9 or LX25 and an extra HDMI port, and developed miniSpartan3, a smaller and cheaper FPGA board called miniSpartan3 powered by Xilinx Spartan 3A XC3A50 or XC3A200 FPGA. miniSpartan3 specifications: FPGA – Xilinx Spartan 3A XC3A50 (50K logic gates) or XC3A200 (200K logic gates) Storage – 4Mbit SPI Flash Video / Audio Output – HDMI USB – Micro USB OTG port Debugging – On-board USB JTAG programmer; on-board USB to Serial Interface I/Os via breadboard friendly through holes 4-channel ADC running at 200 KSPS with 8 bit resolution. 41 Digital I/O pins. Misc – 3 LEDs for debugging; 2 DIP switches. Dimensions –  6.35 x 4.06 cm They have not provided much details about development tools, but it’s quite […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Linaro Announces 64-bit ARM Android Port on Juno ARM Development Platform

Linaro Announces 64-bit ARM Android Port on Juno ARM Development Platform

Last week, Linaro 14.06 was released and one of the highlights was Android booting on ARMv8 models, but the organization has actually ported Android to a new 64-bit ARM platform. Juno ARM Development Platform is actually software development platform for ARMv8-A, including Juno Versatile Express board and an ARMv8-A reference software port developed by Linaro. Juno VExpress Board has the following key hardware features: SoC – 2x ARM Cortex A57 cores @ 1.1 GHz (2MB L2 cache), 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 850 MHz (1MB L2 cache) in big.LITTLE configuration with Mali-T624 GPU @ 600 MHz. Compliant with SBSA specifications Level 1. I/O FPGA – Xilinx SPARTAN-6 MCU – ARM Cortex M3 for Motherboard Configuration Controller (MCC) System Memory – 8GB DDR3L @ 1600 MHz Storage – User and configuration micro SD card lots, 64MB NOR flash, configuration EEPROM Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet + 10M “configuration” Ethernet Video Output – […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on $88 Papilio DUO Arduino Compatible Board with a Xilinx FPGA Let You to Draw your Own Circuits

$88 Papilio DUO Arduino Compatible Board with a Xilinx FPGA Let You to Draw your Own Circuits

In a concept similar to Arduissimo, Papilio DUO is an Arduino compatible board with a Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA, but it adds a real Atmel AVR MCU, and instead of going the Indiegogo route, the project has launched on Kickstarter, and already reached its $30,000 funding target with 13 days to go. Instead of writing VHDL code, a drag and drop graphical tool called DesignLab will help you build your own circuits more easily. Let’s go through the hardware specifications first: FPGA – Xilinx Spartan 6 LX9 FPGA System Memory – 512KB or 2MB ISSI IS61WV5128 SRAM Storage – 64Mbit Macronix MX25L6445 SPI Flash MCU – Atmel AVR ATmega32U4 (Same as Arduino Leonardo) USB – 1x micro USB port connected to the Atmel MCU, 1x mini USB port connect to the FPGA I/Os 54 I/O pins  available via Arduino Mega headers 0-16 Digital Pins connected to FPGA and ATmega32U4 JTAG Power – High […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on $69 miniSpartan6+ Board with Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA Features an HDMI Port (Crowdfunding)

$69 miniSpartan6+ Board with Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA Features an HDMI Port (Crowdfunding)

I’ve already featured sub-$100 Xilinx Spartan 6 boards in this blog such as The Mojo and Arduissimo. There’s now another with Scarab Hardware‘s miniSpartan6+ which also includes an HDMI port, and is currently available for $69 on Kickstarter. This board could be used as a logic analyzer, a multimedia player, a game console emulator, an Arduino emulator, a stereo vision camera, and more. miniSpartan6+ specifications: FPGA- Xilinx Spartan6 LX9 System Memory – 32 MB SDRAM Storage – 64Mbit SPI Flash + micro SD card Video Output – HDMI Audio Output – Stereo audio output jack using 1-bit sigma-delta DAC USB – Micro USB OTG port Debugging – On-board USB JTAG programmer I/Os via breadboard friendly through holes 8-channel ADC running at 1 MSPS with 8 bit resolution. 24 Digital I/O pins. Misc – 8 LEDs. Dimensions – 4.57 x 7.62 cm Programming can be done with the company’s Scarab IDE, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on $89 LOGi Development Boards Add FPGA and Arduino Headers to the Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone Black (Crowdfunding)

$89 LOGi Development Boards Add FPGA and Arduino Headers to the Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone Black (Crowdfunding)

LOGi-Pi and LOGi-Bone are expansion boards featuring Xilinx Spartan 6 for respectively the Raspberry Pi, and the Beaglebone Black. Valent F(x), the company who designed the boards, is currently looking for funds via Kickstarter in order to bring the cost down to $89, or even $69 for early backers. LOGi boards specifications: FPGA – Xilinx Spartan 6 LX9 TQFP-144 FPGA 9,152 Logic Cells, 16 DSP48A1 Slices, 576KB Ram, and 96 User Available I/O Pins System Memory –  256 Mb SDRAM connected to the FPGA Storage – 1x High Bandwidth SATA connector expansion port Video Output – 10x Length-tuned LVDS Pairs Connectors: 2x Digilent Inc. PMOD ports supporting 59+ plug-and-play hardware modules Arduino compatible headers connected to the FPGA pins (3.3v only) supporting over 200 Arduino Shields. Bit-Stream loading interface connected to the host processor, optional bitstream FPGA self-loading from onboard Flash. Misc – 2x LEDs 2x Push Buttons 2x DIP Switches 3.3v I/O Regulator and […]