Hi, I'm kind of new to using external I/O connections on FPGA boards but I'm tasked with a project where I plan to interface a high-speed camera with 6 lvds pairs (4 data + 1 clock + 1 sync) with the clock input reaching up to 360 MHz, translating to a max data flow of 720Mbps through each of the 4 data pairs. Although this is the optimal operating condition, I don't necessarily have to achieve such speeds if I can get something close to that using an inexpensive board as low-cost is an important factor here. I was told to look at the following xilinx fpga boards with the Zynq 7000 series chips:
Zybo (~$200): 512 GB DDR3, has VGA and HDMI, only pmod I/O connectors. From what I've read, I understand the high speed pmods are set to 3.3V, but can work at a lower voltage if only used for input, but do I need to physically alter the board for this? What speeds can I actually reach through these connectors?
MicroZed (~$200): 1 GB DDR3, no display out, will have to connect through microheaders on the back, but I can control the I/O bank voltages through the inputs from my carrier card for LVDS. MicroZed manual says "Differential LVDS pairs on a -1 speed grade device are capable of 950Mbps of DDR data" but does this mean the microheader connector is also capable of this rate? I ask this because a similar board from MYiR, the Z-turn (~$100), is very similar in design (but includes HDMI and surprisingly much cheaper) and their support says "Z-turn Board expansion connectors are most for PL ports which can support LVDS differential input, the speed is up to 200MHz in theory." which seems too slow.
From what I've gathered, the Z7010/20 chips and the DDR3 ram are very capable of handling the speeds necessary for operating the camera sensor and the large ram size is important for storing the large number of frames, but I'm confused whether the board these are on allows these chips to receive the input fast enough to make full use of both these chips and the camera sensor. Are there any other low-end boards with large enough memory and fast I/O that can make full use of this camera sensor?
Any help or guidance is much appreciated on where to look and how to design.
Thanks.
