Quick Survey of Low Cost FPGA Boards
Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) can perform very specific functions more quickly than a general purpose processor. Programming them is quite tedious, wiring together low level logic elements in software. Programming them is said to be an order of magnitude more difficult than conventional processors, compiling code can be an overnight process.
I have a specialized video scan conversion application for which an FPLA may be the ideal solution. Below are some FPLA boards I ran across in a quick survey of lower priced offerings. There is quite a mix of Apples, Oranges and Pears here that may be easily compared.
Most of these boards use an FPLA the lower end of their family line, sufficient for learning and modest scale solutions, programmed like their larger counterparts, but with fewer connections and logic elements.
Arduino has recently added a new line of MKR boards, including the MKR Vidor 4000, it uses a Cyclone 10 FPGA providing 16K Logic Elements, 504Kbit of embedded RAM and 56 18x18 bit HW multipliers for high-speed DSP. The board also includes HDMI & MIPI camera connectors, Wifi & BLE it is offered "on sale" for $60.00
I have to wonder how many users of the simplified Arduino IDE will be capable of coding an FPGA, hopefully a library of pre-compiled modules will become available. Arduino may be late delivering the visual FPGA programming environment they have promised. (The free LC development environment offered by Intel is a 6 GB download.)
Getting Started Guide
LOW PRICE WINNER, the $7.99 UPDuino v1.0 (open source design)
This Arduino Nano and Pro Mini shield board includes:
The $13.99 UPDuino v2.0 adds a USB interface
The Lattice iCEstick Evaluation Kit with iCE40HX-1k
Plugs into your PCs USB port like an overgrown dongle.
Amazon $40.98, Digi-Key $27.02, Symmetry Electronics $22.50, Mouser $25.00
MAX1000 - IoT Maker Board $29 at Arrow
Intel MAX10 FPGA with 8000 logic elements, 500 LABs/CLBs
8 MByte RAM on board, 3-axis acceleration , 8x 1Msps 12Bit A-D , USB
Mimas – Spartan 6 FPGA Development Board $34.95
This board uses a better known Xilinx Spartan-6 XC6SLX9 FPGA
(v2 adds lots of connectors and a 3 digit LED display $49.95)
(one of 18 boards offer by this Colorado Springs company)
Alchitry Au - Artix 7 XC7A35T-1C - 33,280 logic cells $109.99 USD + Shipping
This is a more powerful tool, using a Xilinx Atrix 7 FPGA
includes: 256MB DDR3 RAM, 102 IO pins, 9 differential analog input, USB
NovTech, Inc Chameleon96 Kit $129.00 (Arrow exclusive?) the FPGA a small part of the total.
Uses Intel® (Altera) Cyclone V SoC FPGA & dual-core (800Mhz) ARM® Cortex™-A9
Bluetooth, WLAN, USB and HDMI, Comes with Linux SD card.
Cyclone V SE: 110,000 logic elements, 13,750 logic arrays, 6.144 Gb/s data rate, 6151 kbit ram
Meets 96 Boards Spec. ( May be a better commercial design platform than the Raspberry Pi)
This System on Chip board is similar in size and function to the Raspberry Pi using the Broadcom chip (I have not compared the performance of the FPGA of this chip to the Pi's GPU)
I have a specialized video scan conversion application for which an FPLA may be the ideal solution. Below are some FPLA boards I ran across in a quick survey of lower priced offerings. There is quite a mix of Apples, Oranges and Pears here that may be easily compared.
Most of these boards use an FPLA the lower end of their family line, sufficient for learning and modest scale solutions, programmed like their larger counterparts, but with fewer connections and logic elements.
Arduino has recently added a new line of MKR boards, including the MKR Vidor 4000, it uses a Cyclone 10 FPGA providing 16K Logic Elements, 504Kbit of embedded RAM and 56 18x18 bit HW multipliers for high-speed DSP. The board also includes HDMI & MIPI camera connectors, Wifi & BLE it is offered "on sale" for $60.00
 |
| MKR Vidor 4000 |
I have to wonder how many users of the simplified Arduino IDE will be capable of coding an FPGA, hopefully a library of pre-compiled modules will become available. Arduino may be late delivering the visual FPGA programming environment they have promised. (The free LC development environment offered by Intel is a 6 GB download.)
Getting Started Guide
LOW PRICE WINNER, the $7.99 UPDuino v1.0 (open source design)
This Arduino Nano and Pro Mini shield board includes:
- Lattice UltraPlus FPGA (Same as the tiny Fomu uses)
- 5.3K LUTs, 1Mb SPRAM, 120Kb DPRAM, 8 16-bit Multipliers with 32-bit accumulators.
The $13.99 UPDuino v2.0 adds a USB interface
The Lattice iCEstick Evaluation Kit with iCE40HX-1k
Plugs into your PCs USB port like an overgrown dongle.
Amazon $40.98, Digi-Key $27.02, Symmetry Electronics $22.50, Mouser $25.00
MAX1000 - IoT Maker Board $29 at Arrow
Intel MAX10 FPGA with 8000 logic elements, 500 LABs/CLBs
8 MByte RAM on board, 3-axis acceleration , 8x 1Msps 12Bit A-D , USB
Mimas – Spartan 6 FPGA Development Board $34.95
This board uses a better known Xilinx Spartan-6 XC6SLX9 FPGA
(v2 adds lots of connectors and a 3 digit LED display $49.95)
(one of 18 boards offer by this Colorado Springs company)
Supported by open source tool chain: Project IceStorm
Alchitry Au - Artix 7 XC7A35T-1C - 33,280 logic cells $109.99 USD + Shipping
This is a more powerful tool, using a Xilinx Atrix 7 FPGA
includes: 256MB DDR3 RAM, 102 IO pins, 9 differential analog input, USB
NovTech, Inc Chameleon96 Kit $129.00 (Arrow exclusive?) the FPGA a small part of the total.
Uses Intel® (Altera) Cyclone V SoC FPGA & dual-core (800Mhz) ARM® Cortex™-A9
Bluetooth, WLAN, USB and HDMI, Comes with Linux SD card.
Cyclone V SE: 110,000 logic elements, 13,750 logic arrays, 6.144 Gb/s data rate, 6151 kbit ram
Meets 96 Boards Spec. ( May be a better commercial design platform than the Raspberry Pi)
This System on Chip board is similar in size and function to the Raspberry Pi using the Broadcom chip (I have not compared the performance of the FPGA of this chip to the Pi's GPU)
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