ICE40UP5k in stock

I'm glad to hear it's finally available to us minions.  By the way, it's a QFN (leadless), not a QFP.

Oh that looks like a cool little device. There is probably scope for creating a carrier board which gives access to all the IO but deals with any power and clocking in a breadboard friendly format maybe with a microUSB for connecting to the PC for programming. Hmmm, I can see an additional project coming up

rachaelp  wrote:

 

Oh that looks like a cool little device. There is probably scope for creating a carrier board which gives access to all the IO but deals with any power and clocking in a breadboard friendly format maybe with a microUSB for connecting to the PC for programming. Hmmm, I can see an additional project coming up

The iCE40UP5K is the FPGA on the US$8 Gnarly Grey UPduino.  The board has some electrical issues, so check the last link.  It doesn't have a built-in programmer.

Edit: it still seems to be in stock at gnarlygrey.atspace.cc.  I first learned of the UPduino from andrea venturi's comment in Not-as-expensive FPGA Boards

I just looked at the other thread you linked to and then saw the schematic linked by shabaz for the board. OMG... I'd have not bothered even looking at the PCB based on the schematic design alone. It looks like a dogs dinner and almost no thought was put into it other than wiring up to every pin. Such a poor design for something which should have been really quick and easy to do right for anybody with even basic hardware design experience. Shocking....

So I wonder if there is any desire for a well designed board for this part in a similar form factor to that UPduino? Or any suggestions for a preferred form factor, feature requests, etc? I'm probably going to start putting something together for a test board as it's not going to take long and I can probably get the boards done on a panel with some other things I am planning to get PCB's made for.

Best Regards,

Rachael

rachaelp  wrote:

 

Such a poor design for something which should have been really quick and easy to do right for anybody with even basic hardware design experience. Shocking....

The designer said he paid a "High School/College kid in Sri Lanka" to do the layout.  Obviously a learning experience for him.

rachaelp  also wrote:

 

So I wonder if there is any desire for a well designed board for this part in a similar form factor to that UPduino? Or any suggestions for a preferred form factor, feature requests, etc? I'm probably going to start putting something together for a test board as it's not going to take long and I can probably get the boards done on a panel with some other things I am planning to get PCB's made for.

I would be interested in one or two to start with if the price is good.  There's still no "standard" FPGA hobbyist/educational/prototyping board.  There are lots of boards from lots of vendors and none has hit the critical mass to be "the one" like Raspberry Pi.

I have several iCE40 HX1K boards: an original iCEblink40 that's so old... [how old is it?]... it's so old that the chip is labeled Silicon Blue, the company that created iCE40 and was bought by Lattice.  I also have a Lattice iCEstick and a Nandland GoBoard.  My pet peeve with all of them is that they're hard-wired to boot from Serial Flash, so if you want to program the iCE40 FPGA configuration RAM directly (which is a lot faster) you have to do some PCB surgery.

My preferences would be:

1.  DIP form factor with 0.1" spacing on header holes.  Don't populate the headers, since users may want to do something custom with them.

2.  FTDI programmer, e.g., an FT2232H or FT232H.  These are nice chips and software is easy, but unfortunately they are rather expensive... almost as much as the FPGA itself.  The dual-channel FT2232H is nice since you can use the second channel for a UART, but the single-channel FT232H is cheaper.  It could be depopulated for a low-cost version that's programmable through an optional header.

3.  Make provision for programming the FPGA configuration RAM, e.g., some zero-Ohm jumpers to change from default Serial Flash programming to direct RAM programming.  I think Lattice has an HX8K board that has jumpers for this.

4.  At least one user-programmable LED.

The important thing is to keep it really cheap, which is very hard to do in small quantities.  The UPduino US$8 is pretty much impossible without vendor subsidy, and even iCEstick's US$25 with FT2232H is hard to meet without subsidy.  You'd be competing with those, so if you can't do it for US$25 you probably won't get much interest.  Kickstarter is a good way to get the initial volume up and to gauge level of interest.

I think it is a bit mean he is blaming a 'high school kid from Sri Lanka'. The product is from his firm with his name on his website, he should take responsibility. The buck stops with him. He should have checked the design, if it really did come from a 'high school kid'. I'm sceptical (but then, I always am : ) And also tired of seeing poor quality products.

I'm glad you're considering doing this : ) It is in capable hands : )

Hi John!

I think it is possible the price-point is low because it could be reusing old components, maybe.. There was some comment on the other thread that the serial flash had strings in it from some other product:

>I think it is a bit mean he is blaming a 'high school kid from Sri Lanka'.

I agree - if the designer chose to hire out the work to an intern, he's ultimately still responsible for the final product. To blame the intern for a product the company made shows the company is not trustworthy.

Interesting way to develop a cheap product though.

I wonder if he used Fiver.

Thanks for your input John. It's good to know what I would be comparing my version against if I go ahead and do this. I do think doing it well for $25 is going to be tight, do you not think there is scope for being slightly higher than that if it's done well and is very flexible to use? How about for R&D labs prototyping with FPGA's? Being able to quickly and easily put an FPGA down on a easy to build prototype board surely has to be worth more than $25 in time saved from having to create something from scratch?

Is there anything else which could be added to give value which would make people more likely to want to pay a little more?

So currently the specs I would be working towards are:

• Board based on Lattice ICE40UP5K-SG48ITR FPGA.
• DIP form factor based on 0.1" pitch to allow use in typical breadboard setup.
• FT232H for built in USB programmer interface or FT2232H for built in USB programmer plus additional USB serial port.
• SPI flash for storing device config.
• Easily configurable programming options to allow direct FPGA upload or uploading to SPI Flash.
• On board power supplies for generating core and I/O voltages from 5V input. Optionally allow 3V3 external supply if 5V not available.
• Provide 3V3, 2V5 and 1V8 voltage rails and configuration jumpers to allow any I/O voltage standards to be used.
• Provide access to all I/Os on the external pins.
• Provide on board precision clock source(s) to replace the built in oscillator (as it's not accurate enough to be useful).
• Provide clean filtered PLL supply voltage to ensure the on-chip PLL works well.
• Provide on board LED(s) utilising the LED interface pins.

Is there anything else anybody wants to suggest in terms of hardware features?

For the firmware, it should be supplied with a skeleton project setup to configure the I/O and deal with basic functions, a bit like the default Arduino comes with a sketch which flashes an LED so you know it's ok, there should be something similar. Maybe even spit out a message over serial (if it exists). There should be examples of various other setups too so people can easily get to grips with how to use different functions within the device.

From a software perspective, I guess the open source IceStorm tools would be the ideal base for such a platform but it looks like this part isn't supported yet so the only option is to use Lattice's own toolset.

What are people's thoughts?

Best Regards,

Rachael

If you want to keep the cost down then you don't need anything other than the SPI flash on the board and then use an external thing to programme it. For  a customer I made them a programmer based on an ST Nucleo board.

I think your board plan looks fine. I was thinking of doing one similar but if you are going that route then I'll do one with a micro on board (STM32F4xxx).

In the hope that it might be useful here are some design notes I did for a customer who did their own pcb design (lots of other audio stuff on it that we won't talk about).

The fancy clock chip is not needed for general work (and costs more than the FPGA). Where a symbol has  part name inside and a different one outside then the outside one prevails.

This design uses some 1.8V IO and some 3.3V.

If you want chips I would get an order in because some one may gobble them up - I've ordered 25.

MK