Indian programmable computing specialist Vicharak has unveiled a lower-cost, extra compact various to its Vaaman “reconfigurable edge laptop:” the Shrike, which hosts a Renesas ForgeFPGA chip alongside a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller on a breadboard-friendly growth board.
“Shrike FPGA is a compact, open-source growth board that pairs the RP2040 microcontroller with the Renesas ForgeFPGA, enabling you to construct highly effective customized logic programs, instructional experiments, and real-world {hardware} interfaces,” says Vicharak’s Akshar Vastarpara of the board. “It contains absolutely open documentation and a USB Kind-C port for programming and energy. Whether or not you are a pupil, educator, embedded developer, or simply interested in FPGAs, Shrike offers you a sublime, low-cost platform you need to use to dive into the world of reconfigurable computing.”
Vicharak is again with one other FPGA growth board, this time aiming on the cost-conscious maker: the Shrike. (📷: Vicharak)
The board is constructed across the Renesas ForgeFPGA SLG47910V field-programmable gate array with 1,120 look-up tables (LUTs), linked to a Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller through a six-bit high-speed bridge. There is a quad-SPI hyperlink to exterior flash for the microcontroller, whereas the RP2040 is linked to 23 general-purpose enter/output (GPIO) pins and the ForgeFPGA to 14 GPIO pins plus a PMOD enlargement connector; each get their very own user-programmable LED for standing notifications.
The Shrike comes round a yr and a half after Vicharak opened crowdfunding for its Vaaman “reconfigurable edge laptop,” which didn’t attain its funding objective however entered manufacturing anyway again in April. The Shrike’s specs are significantly decrease than its predecessor, which boasts an application-class Rockchip RK3399 six-core system-on-chip and an Efinix Trion T120 FPGA with 112,128 logic components, however that also needs to be mirrored within the value — as-yet unannounced.
Extra data is obtainable on the Shrike Crowd Provide marketing campaign web page, the place events can signal as much as be notified when it goes reside. The corporate has promised that the board’s design and firmware, which features a MicroPython-based device for programming the FPGA, can be launched below an unspecified open supply license “after the marketing campaign closes.”
