Want a laptop with a FPGA?  You're in luck!

I saw Bunnie's keynote yesterday at ESC aka EE Live! in San Jose.  Great talk, for which he used a Novena prototype -- he said the paint was still curing when he packed it for the show   I'll make some more comments about this at the OSH group's Novena discussion: http://www.element14.com/community/thread/32712/l/novena-open-source-hardware-laptop-launches

Regarding the Spartan 6 FPGA, while it's "open hardware" in the sense that you can get data sheets, user guides, and dozens of app notes for the chip, you cannot compile FPGA designs except with Xilinx software.  You can't use open-source software to design your FPGAs, and as far as I know the Xilinx software doesn't even run on the i.MX6 so you can't even use your laptop to design FPGAs to download to your laptop -- you still need a separate x86 PC.

From what he said at a recent panel discussion, Bunnie doesn't have a problem with this -- the Xilinx tools fulfill his needs, and they're free-as-in-beer.  I'm personally glad to see the FPGA on the board, since practically anything that increases interest in FPGAs is a Good Thing and mentioning FPGA and Open Source in the same sentence or even paragraph helps in the long run.

I'm jealous you got to see that!

The inclusion of the FPGA is a bit eccentric, but I think it is really because this is the laptop that bunnie designed for bunnie.  My recollection from a earlier blog post of his is that he wanted to be able to do hardware hacking on the go.  xobs and him used it to fuzz microcontrollers embedded in SD cards to produce the results in their awesome SD card hack: On Hacking MicroSD Cards « bunnie's blog.

Leaving the FPGA aside, this seems like this is an excellent start to Open Source Hardware laptops.  I hope it continues!

Drew Fustini wrote:

 

I'm jealous you got to see that!

 

The inclusion of the FPGA is a bit eccentric, but I think it is really because this is the laptop that bunnie designed for bunnie.  My recollection from a earlier blog post of his is that he wanted to be able to do hardware hacking on the go.

Yes, well hardware hacking OTG sounds great, but wait until he needs to recompile his design FPGA.  He'll need to set up an x86 server somewhere.  Fortunately, Xilinx software is easily run from the command line so you don't have to transfer all that ISE Navigator nonsense of X Windows (I assume the GNU/Linux versions use X Windows).

Personally, I find it pretty hard to do serious hardware development without having a 'scope, probes, multimeter, jumpers, cables, and various parts like pull-up resistors handy.  I guess you could carry around the new Tektronix MDO3000 6-in-1, but after a while it's like lugging around a couple of Osbornes

By rearranging some stuff in the case, it looks like it might be possible to add an Intel NUC or similar inside.

Mike Lu wrote:

 

By rearranging some stuff in the case, it looks like it might be possible to add an Intel NUC or similar inside.

Sure, that would work.  Minnowboard MAX might be a very nice fit when those become available: http://www.element14.com/community/message/107811/l/meet-minnowboard-max

I saw one running at ESC AKA EE Live! two days ago.  Nice board, processor only slightly warm with a heat sink.  OTOH, Galileo's Quark SoC was very hot -- tiny package for 2 Watts.

I'm sorry but the whole project seems completely pointless to me. It's a really bad laptop with a seriously less than state of the art FPGA. And as John has pointed out the FPGA tools won't run on the lap top. You would be far better off with a ready made laptop at a  fraction of the price and an add on box with whatever FPGA you actually need. It's easy to get high data rate (but not low latency) links between FPGA and laptop via Ethernet or USB.

MK

Michael Kellett wrote:

 

It's easy to get high data rate (but not low latency) links between FPGA and laptop via Ethernet or USB.

Well, that's the key point -- a low-latency connection between CPU and FPGA.  If you want to use your FPGA as a co-processor rather than a networked processor, you do need that low-latency connection.  Plus, if you're going to talk to your FPGA via Ethernet or USB then your FPGA needs Ethernet and/or USB logic built in or have yet another processor.

Now the right way to get this CPU <--> FPGA connection really fast and really low latency is to put them in the same package like Zynq.  I don't know what sort of yield Zynq is getting, but those boards are still pretty expensive given that the original Zynq marketing was promising "a starting point below $15" [Xcell Journal, second quarter 2011].

The list price leader is still Parallella at US$99 with Z-7010.  Yes, they're still around.  They've been held up by parts availability, but are promising "this time for sure!" to build and ship all the original Kickstarter and pre-order boards this month (April 2014): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a-supercomputer-for-everyone/posts/791102

Of course, Xilinx tools won't run on Parallella either.  But maybe at some point people actually notice this and start complaining, and maybe at point Xilinx gets embarrassed enough to do the right thing [general laughter].  Well, one can hope, can't one?  Who though Broadcom would release VideoCore IV documentation?