Parallella $99 board now open hardware on Github

Although Adapteva are still fulfilling their Kickstarter committment, their shop is already open for preorders of the 16-core Epiphany board for November delivery.  Three options appear to be available:

If "No GPIO" means none, zero, zilch, that doesn't appear very enticing, I must say.  If this describes the situation accurately, the range of application of the basic board will be a lot narrower than expected.  And if the Zynq-7020-based Parallella-16 costs $199, then the price of the Parallella-64 is probably going to be very unfriendly.

Does anyone have a ballpark price for the Xilinx XC7Z010 or XC7Z020-1CLG400C?

I ask because if the price difference between the Zynq 7010 and 7020 versions of Parallella-16 is $80, then it's highly likely that the cost of the 7010 is a large part of the BOM cost of the entire board.

Combining the gigabit Ethernet which is not a low-cost option with the (probable) high price of the 7010 device, this suggests that the Epiphany-16 chip itself is not very expensive because somehow it all has to add up to $99.  Since the board is open hardware, this in turn suggests that far cheaper Epiphany-powered boards could be created by open hardware enthusiasts by replacing the extortionate Xilinx hardware with something else.

If as seems likely, the Epiphany-16 really is inexpensive, 4 of them on a board fronted by a cheap TI or Allwinner ARM SoC and interfaced through low-end programmable logic sounds a lot more appealing than multiple hundreds of dollars for a Parallella-64 which isn't yet in development anyway.

Does anyone have a ballpark price for the Xilinx XC7Z010 or XC7Z020-1CLG400C?

I ask because if the price difference between the Zynq 7010 and 7020 versions of Parallella-16 is $80, then it's highly likely that the cost of the 7010 is a large part of the BOM cost of the entire board.

Combining the gigabit Ethernet which is not a low-cost option with the (probable) high price of the 7010 device, this suggests that the Epiphany-16 chip itself is not very expensive because somehow it all has to add up to $99.  Since the board is open hardware, this in turn suggests that far cheaper Epiphany-powered boards could be created by open hardware enthusiasts by replacing the extortionate Xilinx hardware with something else.

If as seems likely, the Epiphany-16 really is inexpensive, 4 of them on a board fronted by a cheap TI or Allwinner ARM SoC and interfaced through low-end programmable logic sounds a lot more appealing than multiple hundreds of dollars for a Parallella-64 which isn't yet in development anyway.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

Does anyone have a ballpark price for the Xilinx XC7Z010 or XC7Z020-1CLG400C?

 

I ask because if the price difference between the Zynq 7010 and 7020 versions of Parallella-16 is $80, then it's highly likely that the cost of the 7010 is a large part of the BOM cost of the entire board.

At Avnet.com, which is where I usually price Xilinx, the XC7Z010-1CLG400C is US$53, quantity 100.  The XC7Z020-1CLG400C is US$108.  So it's about US$55 difference.  Remember that the 7020 Parallella includes the GPIO connectors.

The Parallella pricing is for "preorder", so may go up in November.  The original Xilinx marketing materials for Zynq talked about US$15 chips, but that's probably a target, with absurd quantities.

I'm sure Adapteva will happily sell Epiphany chips to whoever wants to buy them.

John Beetem wrote:

 

At Avnet.com, which is where I usually price Xilinx, the XC7Z010-1CLG400C is US$53, quantity 100.  The XC7Z020-1CLG400C is US$108.  So it's about US$55 difference.

Very interesting!

It was only a rather unsafe inference that the 7010 was a large part of the cost, but it seems that I guessed right, or at least not entirely wrong.  It seems then that the Epiphany-16 costs comparatively little, and most of the $99 price of Parallella is going to feed poor starving Xilinx.

Since it's open hardware, alternative designs without the Xilinx tax beckon.