Category: Xilinx Zynq

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Amazon EC2 F1 Instances Put Xilinx Virtex Ultrascale+ FPGA Boards into the Cloud

Amazon EC2 F1 Instances Put Xilinx Virtex Ultrascale+ FPGA Boards into the Cloud

We’ve covered several board and modules based on Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC such as the AXIOM Board and Trenz TE0808 SoM, both featuring ZU9EG MPSoC, with systems selling for several thousands dollars. But I’ve been informed you may not need to purchase a board to use Virtex UltraScale+ FPGAs, which are different from Zynq UltraScale+ since they lack the ARM CPU & GPU and normally feature a more capable FPGA, as last November, Amazon launched a developer preview of F1 instances giving access to this type of hardware from their cloud. That’s the FPGA hardware you’ll be able to access from one F1 instance: Xilinx UltraScale+ VU9P manufactured using a 16 nm process. 64 GB of ECC-protected memory on a 288-bit wide bus (four DDR4 channels). Dedicated PCIe x16 interface to the CPU. Approximately 2.5 million logic elements. Approximately 6,800 Digital Signal Processing (DSP) engines. Virtual JTAG interface for debugging. […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Trenz Electronic TE0808 UltraSOM+ is a Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ ZU9EG System-on-Module

Trenz Electronic TE0808 UltraSOM+ is a Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ ZU9EG System-on-Module

Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ ARM Cortex A53 + FPGA SoC have now started to show up in boards such as AXIOM Board based on Zynq Ultrascale+ ZU9EG. Price for the board has not been announced, and while a similar Xilinx development kit goes for close to $3,000, some people are expecting the board to sell for $400 to $600. Since the price of FPGA vary a lot from a few dollars to $40,000 for the top end chips, I decided to find pricing info about Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoCs which lead me to Trenz Electronic TE0808 system-on-module, which was unveiled in May last year, and I’ll cover in the second part of this post, after – hopefully quickly – describing Zynq Ultrascale+ family and nomenclature, and addressing the price “issue”. First, there are three sub-families within Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC portfolio: CG models with 2x Cortex A53, 2x Cortex R5, FPGA fabric […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on EU funded AXIOM Board is Powered by Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ FPGA + ARM SoC

EU funded AXIOM Board is Powered by Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ FPGA + ARM SoC

Back in 2015, Xilinx unveiled Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC combining ARM Cortex A53 & Cortex R5 cores, a Mali-400MP2 GPU, and UltraScale FPGA, and the company recently launched ZCU102 Evaluation Kit based on the SoC, which sells for just under $3,000. But if you are based in the European Union, you’ll be glad to learn about 4 millions Euros of your taxes have been spent to design a board based on the same MPSoC family as part of the AXIOM project, which was developed in collaboration with European universities and companies with the “aim of researching new software/hardware architectures for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) to meet the expectations” in terms of computational power, energy efficiency, scalability through modularity, easy programmability, and leverage of the best existing standards at minimal costs. AXIOM (Agile, eXtensible, fast I/O Module) board’s key specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ ZU9EG MPSoC with four ARM Cortex A53 cores […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on MYIR Tech Latest SoM and Development Board Feature Xilinx Zynq-7015 ARM + FPGA SoC with 4 High Speed Transceivers

MYIR Tech Latest SoM and Development Board Feature Xilinx Zynq-7015 ARM + FPGA SoC with 4 High Speed Transceivers

MYIR Tech launched the low cost Z-Turn board powered by Xilinx Zynq-7010/7020 ARM+FPGA SoC last year, and the company has now introduced a new system-on-module powered by Xilinx Zynq-7015 SoC as well as a corresponding development kit. MYC-C7Z015 CPU Module specifications: SoC – Xilinx XC7Z015-1CLG485C (Zynq-7015) dual core ARM Cortex-A9 processor @ 667 MHz (up to 866MHz) with Artix-7 class FPGA subsystem with 74K logic cells, 46,200 LUTs, 160 DSP slices, 4x high-speed SerDes transceivers up to 6.25 Gbps, 4x four PCIe Gen2 hardened, integrated IP blocks System Memory – 1GB DDR3 SDRAM Storage – 4GB eMMC flash, 32MB QSPI Flash (16MB optional) Connectivity – 1x Ethernet PHY, 1x USB PHY I/Os and peripherals via 2x 140-pin board-to-board connectors: 1x Gigabit Ethernet 1x USB OTG 2.0 Up to 2x serial ports, up to 2x I2C, up to 2x CAN BUS, 1x SPI 1x independent differential ADC, 16-channel ADC 1x SDIO […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on PULPino Open Source RISC-V MCU is Designed for IoT and Wearables

PULPino Open Source RISC-V MCU is Designed for IoT and Wearables

lowRISC is not the only open source processor project based on RISC-V instructions, as researchers at ETH Zurich university and the University of Bologna have developed PULPino open-source processor based on RISC-V instructions set, optimized for low power consumption, and targeting wearables and the IoT applications. PULPino is a single core processor derived from the PULP project (Parallel Ultra-Low-Power Platform) featuring a quad core RISC-V SoC with new RI5CY Signal Processing ISA extensions designed by the universities. The core has an IPC (instructions per cycle) close to 1, full support for the base integer instruction set (RV32I), compressed instructions (RV32C) and partial support for the multiplication instruction set extension (RV32M). PULPino also features peripherals such as I2S, I2C, SPI and UART. PULPino has already been taped out as an ASIC in UMC 65nm at the beginning of the year, but the RTL code be run on Xilinx Zynq-7010 powered Zedboard, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Avnet Introduces Zynq Based MicroZed Industry 4.0 / IIoT Ethernet Kit

Avnet Introduces Zynq Based MicroZed Industry 4.0 / IIoT Ethernet Kit

There’s a lot of buzz around IoT, and the industrial sector is also trying to build smarter factories using protocols or standards part of Industry 4.0 or Industrial IoT (IIoT) depending on the country or group you belong too. Avnet has just launched MicroZed Industry 4.0 Ethernet Kit (I4EK) based on Xilinx Zynq-7000 ARM & FPGA SoC to address this market with support for the most common industrial protocols such as EtherCAT, Powerlink, PROFINET RT/IRT, EtherNet/IP, and Modbus-TCP. The “brain” of the development board is MicroZed module powered by Zilinx Zynq-7020 dual core Cortex A9 processor with FPGA fabric, and coupled with 1GB RAM, 128 MB SQPI flash, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and various I/Os. The module is connected to MicroZed FMC Carrier board with the following features: 2x 100-pin board-to-board MicroHeaders Xilinx PC4 header for download/debug – Accesses PL JTAG 5x Digilent Pmod compatible interfaces 39 user I/O 1x […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on OpenAMP Open Source Framework Provides the Glue between Linux, RTOS, and Bare Metal Apps in Heterogeneous SoCs

OpenAMP Open Source Framework Provides the Glue between Linux, RTOS, and Bare Metal Apps in Heterogeneous SoCs

SoCs becoming more complex, and go beyond homogeneous multicore systems by mixing different type of cores such as high performance cores, low power real-time cores, or even FPGA fabric. Examples include NXP i.MX6 SoloX with an ARM Cortex A9 core for Linux apps, and an ARM Cortex M4 core for real-time tasks, or Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC with Cortex A53 core for higher level apps, Cortex R5 cores for real-time processing, and Ultrascale FPGA logic. All these different cores are running their own Linux based OS, real-time operating system or bare metal application, and all this makes software development an even greater difficult tasks. In order to reduce the complexity, and address some of the issues, the Multicore Association has launched a new working group targeting the management, expansion, and standardization of  OpenAMP (Open Asymmetric Multi Processing), an open source framework that allows operating systems to interact within a broad […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Wind River Introduces Free Cloud-based Operating Systems for IoT Applications

Wind River Introduces Free Cloud-based Operating Systems for IoT Applications

After Google Brillo operating system was officially launched last week, another company has announced free operating systems for IoT. What’s peculiar is that the company is Wind River a vendor of commercial operating systems whose typical business model is to sell licenses for their operating systems and fees for their development services. Nevertheless, the company has now introduced Wind River Rocket real-time operating system, and Wind River Pulsar Linux operating system.  Both OSes will interface with the company’s Helix Cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) products, which is probably how the company intends to monetize their work, on top of customization services. Wind River Helix App Cloud is currently made of three products: Helix App Cloud cloud-based development environment for building IoT applications Helix Lab Cloud cloud-based virtual hardware lab for simulating and testing IoT devices and complex systems. Helix Device Cloud cloud-based platform for managing deployed IoT devices and their data. Some […]