[Technology Report]
Spring "Board" To FPGA Design Success
FPGA developmnent boards run the gamut from simple evaluation cards to application-targeted models that let you explore options.
THE NEXT LEVEL Of course, designers can opt for a wide variety of development kits that surpass the $500 price point. Typically falling within the $500 to $5000 range, they offer applicationspecific resources such as special connectors for testing multigigabit serial channels, higher-density FPGAs, and more robust on-board peripheral support to implement full system designs. Examples include QuickLogic's Mobile Application Board (MAB), Nallatech's PC104 cardstack, another QuickLogic board that supports the companys low-power FPGAs, and LatticeXP's Advanced development board (Fig. 2).
The QuickLogic MAB offers a $999 mobile application board (MAB) that ties into the Intel PXA27x processor developer's kit. Based around QuickLogic's Eclipse II QL8325 FPGA, the MAB card comes in two versions. One targets Wi-Fi applications, while the other bridges to hard-disk drives (HDDs). The QL8325 FPGA packs 320 kgates of configurable logic, 55 kbits of embedded RAM, and a dozen embedded computational units that contain 8-bit multipliers and 16-bit adders. Additional on-chip resources include four PLLs and 310 I/O lines.
Complete solution bundles for the Wi-Fi and HDD connectivity applications include the board, the FPGA, reference-design files, and software drivers for Windows CE, Windows Mobile, and Linux. The version of the board shown in Figure 2 includes a hard drive, two SD-card slots, a cardbus interface, and headers for accessing the FPGA's I/O pins. QuickLogic also offers development kits for its QuickMIPS and QuickPCI FPGAs.
The Advanced Evaluation Board for the LatticeXP family of flash-based FPGAs lets users quickly evaluate XPseries FPGA performance. It also aids in the development of custom system designs. At a cost of $1295, the board comes with an LFXP10C-4F388C FPGA soldered onto it.
The FPGAs are based on an optimized version of the LatticeEC logic fabric. They pack 1216 programmable function units (PFUs), 216 kbits of embedded RAM, 39 kbits of distributed RAM, four PLLs, and up to 244 I/O lines. The PFUs come in two variations—one with both logic and RAM-based LUTs, and the other with just logic elements. On the XP10C, about one-third of the PFUs includes the LUTs.
What's on the board? For starters, it offers a PCI interface, a DDR memory interface, a 10/100/1000 Ethernet physical layer (PHY) for network implementations, and a high-speed fast-column DRAM. Surface-mounted-assembly (SMA) connectors are included for external clock inputs, a clock oscillator, multiple power input options, and various LED indicators. A download cable and a wall-adapter power supply come bundled. In addition, the XP Advanced Evaluation board uses the same ispLEVER amd ispVM software tools as Lattice's other boards.
Lattice also recently released a development card for its just-announced SC system chip family of FPGAs. The card includes one of the larger chips in the family, the SC25, which comes in a 900-ball fine-pitch BGA package. The board is designed as a standalone platform for functional development and rapid prototyping of applications that will incorporate high-performance source-synchronous interfaces such as SFI-4, XSBI, SPI-4.2, and DDR2 SDRAM.
To help evaluate designs based around Xilinx's Virtex family, Nallatech's Ben-NUEY-PCI-104 computing card and companion DIME-II expansion modules permit designers to configure a complete system. The cards use the PCI-104 form factor. In addition to the Virtex II FPGA on the BenNUEY-PCI-104 card, FPGA modules containing Virtex II, Virtex II Pro, or Virtex 4 FPGAs can be incorporated to expand the logic capability.
The BenNUEY PCI-104 card includes a 32-bit/33-MHz PCI interface and three of the company's DIME-II expansion slots. It also features 8 Mbytes of zero-bus-turnaround (ZBT) SRAM, a 68-way backplate generalpurpose I/O connector, and the ZBT interface core IP.
The card can be stacked along with other PCI-104 cards that contain analog and digital I/O interfaces, memory subsystems, and other features to implement a complete system. Each of the DIME-II expansion modules can hold one or two Virtex FPGAs. Some also include analog I/O capabilities or additional SRAM or DRAM. A single BenNUEY-PCI-104 card and three DIME-II modules can support up to seven FPGAs.
In addition to the BenNUEY card, Nallatech offers two development kits that are optimized for DSP applications. One of the kits is based around the Xilinx Virtex 4 family, while the other suits Virtex II Pro devices. The XtremeDSP kit for the Virtex 4 family includes the XC4SX35-10FF668 FPGA, which packs approximately 35k logic cells (about 700 kgates), about 3.5 Mbits of embedded memory, 192 dedicated DSP blocks, and up to 448 I/O lines.
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