It looks as if microcontrollers are a dime a dozen as of late (and typically they actually are!), as they’re discovered within the overwhelming majority of an electronics hobbyist’s weekend initiatives. However there’s additionally one other complete world on the market, for those who make an effort to know it. FPGAs are reconfigurable circuits that, for sure purposes, can blow microcontrollers out of the water when it comes to efficiency — particularly in terms of working parallel operations.
Regardless of their many potential purposes, FPGAs are frivolously utilized by hobbyists. That is, largely, as a result of the chips, growth kits, and software program toolchains on the market have primarily been designed with the skilled developer in thoughts. So along with being one thing lower than user-friendly, these instruments additionally are usually on the costly aspect. As such, in case you are not working with FPGAs day in and time out at work, it’s an space that could be very tough to leap into.
A take a look at the PCB design (📷: Chengyin Yao)
A handful of efforts have arisen through the years to construct hobbyist-friendly FPGA growth platforms, and a few of them have been fairly good. However as somebody with a bunch of those boards in a drawer, I do know that if the mission isn’t finished proper, the {hardware} will develop into a paperweight very quickly. The newest entry into the sector comes from {hardware} hacker Chengyin Yao, who needed to construct a low-cost, easy-to-use FPGA platform that may keep away from these issues. The result’s the Icepi Zero. Whether or not it should stay helpful for years to return, or be relegated to the drawer of disgrace, stays to be seen, however the gadget appears fairly promising.
As you would possibly be capable to guess from the board’s title, it borrows the shape issue of the Raspberry Pi Zero. However there isn’t any Broadcom SoC to be discovered on the Icepi Zero — as a substitute you will see that a strong Lattice ECP5U FPGA with 24K LUTs and 112 KiB of RAM. The board additionally has 256MiB of 166MHz SDRAM and 128Mbit of flash reminiscence to increase the system’s capabilities. It additionally has some good I/O choices with three USB-C ports, an HDMI output, a MicroSD card slot, and a few programmable LEDs and buttons.
An illustration of the board’s HDMI output capabilities (📷: Chengyin Yao)
That is all effectively and good, however will it develop into a brick in a yr or two. It doesn’t appear like it. The Icepi Zero comes geared up with a USB to JTAG converter that simplifies the method of programming the chip. Apart from that, the platform depends on well-established open supply instruments like Yosys for Verilog synthesis, nextpnr for putting and routing, and openFPGALoader for loading the bitstream.
The Icepi Zero appears prefer it could possibly be a winner, nevertheless, it received’t be simple to get your palms on one. Yao will not be planning to promote them presently, however you may make your personal because the mission is absolutely open supply. If we will persuade Yao to manufacture some sooner or later, indications are that they might seemingly price someplace between $30 and $40.
