I often get members who want learn "the secret" of how to get picked as an official roadtester. Well, successful (and frequent) roadtesters usually start with something small: writing a blog, starting a discussion, or doing a small project -- all these things I look at when I make roadter selections.
I also get members who apply for roadtests for FPGA products yet have little or no background in programmable device technology nor any experience in the often-complex design tools for these devices. when you have 60 days to do a roadtest, I feel it would be a big burden on the roadtester if he/she had no experience in these things to begin with.
I have thought about both of these types of members and was looking for something simple that (a) would-be roadtester could do to build up their portfolio of things they have done on the community, and (b) something simple where they could learn about FPGAs and get some time to hone their skills with the associated design tool.
I hunted around and came up with the Digilent CMODS7 dev board featuring the Xilinx Spartan-7 FPGA. I have two of them I would like to giveaway to any member who feels he or she is in the above two groups and wants to take a step forward.
Let me tell you a little about the Digilent CMOD S7Digilent CMOD S7. It's a great little board that will help you increase your skills and help you demonstrate your ability to carry out a project to completion -- the key skill to be a super roadtester.
The Digilent CMOD S-7 is a breadboardable Spartan-7 FPGA board.
It come in a small, 48‐pin DIP form factor board, featuring 32 FPGA digital I/O signals, 2 FPGA analog input signals, an external power input rail, and ground are routed to 100‐mil‐spaced through‐hole pins, making the Cmod S7 well suited for use with solderless breadboards. At just 0.7” by 3.05” inches, it can be loaded in a standard socket and used in embedded systems. The board also includes a programming ROM, clock source, USB programming and data transfer circuit, power supplies, LEDs, and buttons.
Here are some more features:
Xilinx Spartan‐7 FPGA (XC7S25‐1CSGA225C)
o 3,650 slices containing four 6‐input LUTs and 8 flip‐flops
o 1,620 Kbits of fast block RAM
o 3 clock management tiles, each with a phase‐locked loop and mixed‐mode clock manager
o 80 DSP slices
o Internal clock speeds exceeding 450 MHz
o On‐chip analog‐to‐digital converter (XADC)
o Programmable over JTAG and Quad‐SPI Flash
Memory
o 4 MB Quad‐SPI Flash
Power
o Powered from USB or 5V external supply connected to DIP pin 24
USB
o USB‐JTAG programming circuitry
o USB‐UART bridge
Push‐buttons and LEDs
o 2 Buttons
o 4 LEDs
o 1 RGB LED
Expansion Connectors
o 1 Pmod connector
Software Support
The Cmod S7 is fully compatible with the high‐performance Vivado 
Design Suite versions 2018.1 and newer. It is supported under the free WebPACK
installation option, which does not require a license, so designs can be implemented at no additional cost. This free installation includes the ability to create MicroBlaze soft‐core processor designs. Design resources, example projects, and tutorials are available for download at the Cmod S7 Resource Center.
How To Get this Free Board
Leave a comment and tell me about yourself as an element14 member. Tell me about your electronics knowledge as well. What you have done on the community, and what you would like to do to get this board. I'l take a week or so and then review the comments. I'll end up picking two people. I'll send you the board and I you have to post a blog on the CMOD S& including pictures or videos of what you have done.
Sincerely,
Randall Scasny
RoadTest Program Manager
