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  • Author Author: johnbeetem
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Not-as-expensive FPGA Boards

I haven't done a poll in a while so I thought it would be fun and instructive to do one about less-expensive FPGA boards.  One of the challenges of getting into FPGA design is that the boards are usually a lot more expensive than a Raspberry Pi or a microcontroller board from ST, NXP, or TI.  This may prevent people from giving FPGAs a try, which in turn makes the boards more expensive since they're manufactured in smaller quantities.

 

Still, if you look around there are some nice boards under US$100 and even under US$50.  I highly recommend Joel Williams' list of Cheap FPGA Development Boards.

 

Here are some boards available for US$50 or less that seem particularly interesting.  I've used the Papilio One and iCEstick myself.

 

  • Gadget Factory Papilio One 250K: This is one of my favorite boards and IMO a very good value at US$38.  It has a Xilinx Spartan-3E 250K, 48 I/Os on headers, and a JTAG programmer.  It's currently out of stock, but you get its "big brother" with a 500K part for US$65.

  • Generic Cyclone II board: Two years ago Michael Kellett wrote a nice 'blog about a US$15 Altera Cyclone II board available from Chinese distributor AliExpress.  It's an impressive board, except that it doesn't come with a programmer.  Michael was able to get a bundle with a programmer for just under US$50.

  • Lattice iCEstick:  At US$22 from some vendors, this is the least expensive FPGA board I know of that includes a programmer.  It has a Lattice iCE40 1K LUT FPGA, which is a small FPGA -- maybe a fifth the capacity of Papilio One 250K.   On the other hand, iCE40 is the only FPGA that has a fully open-source tool chain.

 

  • Numato Labs Mimas: At US$35, Numato's Mimas is the cheapest Spartan 6 LX9 board I've seen with a programmer.  It has a lots of I/O on headers, along with some LEDs and push-buttons.  Numato is based in India, so I don't know what shipping is like.  Numato also has Mimas V2 for US$50, which adds 64MB DDR SDRAM, VGA connector, and 3-digit 7-segment display but much less general-purpose I/O than Mimas.  And they also have the US$30 Elbert V2 with a 50K Xilinx Spartan 3A and I/O similar to Mimas V2.

 

  • Scarab Hardware miniSpartan3 is a small Xilinx Spartan 3A board with a 50K or 200K part for $30 or $40, including an on-board programmer.  I've never dealt with Scarab personally.  The miniSpartan3 is a nice size to incorporate into other projects and has lots of general-purpose I/O.

 

So which one do you like best?  Or is there another not-as-expensive FPGA board you prefer?  If you have experience with any of these boards or vendors, please comment.

  • in reply to aventuri

    My board turned up today, pretty quick considering where it came from.

     

    Initial reaction is that the design is not that good - no ground planes, decoupling caps too few and too far from the FPGA.

     

    I'll get some power on it some time in the next few days and see what it will actually do.

     

    MK

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    hello,

    after some trials, i've been able to write into the FPGA SRAM for a live test of a bitstream (created with IceCube2), here the "digital kitten video"! :-)

     

     

    i took some time for a couple of reasons:

    • as  i'm using a SBC with Allwinner A10, i was unable to find a library like wiringPi and i wrote GPIO with a direct access to registers via MMAP. it's really bare metal HW access, more performant!
    • the "clever" wiring of the board SPI interface can permit both to write a design bitstream into the SPI FLASH EEPROM and the load of the bitstream into the FPGA SAM (for a quick test, volatile).

    the two modes do need anyway to have the host application to write on one way (FLASH_MISO) for the first task, and on the other way for the second one (FLASH_MOSI). i took my time to wrap my head around the wiring (because the doc is not that clear on this topic..).

    i plan to release my simple app as soon as i've checked i can write the SPI FLASH too..

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    here some better pics; the flash is marked 25Q03213 E40 a Micron 32Mbit part..

     

    i need to solder the rails, actually..

     

    Upduino iCE40 UP5 front side

     

    Upduono back side with SPI flash

     

    PS maybe it's time to get out of this thread and move on a dedicate one..

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    yeah, there's no Q field.i made two payments separately, BUT i wrote in the notes that he could send me the devices in the same shipping..

     

    PS i'm told that the shipping is just 1$ if the envelope is less then 1/4 inch thick, otherwise it's 13$.. so can understand why the delivery is a bit of "a shot in the dark.."

  • in reply to aventuri

    How did you order 2 - I couldn't find anywhere to set the quantity yo buy.

     

    I've just ordered one at £7.99 (oddly a worse exchange rate than Paypal offered if I paid in $ but maybe that's for extra post.)

     

    I can't understand why Lattice don't get these parts into Digikey and Mouser, and even more I don't understand why Farnell are stocking XIlinx Ultra FPGAs at nearly £1000 per chip but don't stock the cheap Lattice and Altera parts that they might actually shift in numbers.

     

    Thanks for taking the plunge Andrea - keep us posted.

     

    MK

  • today i've got a very light envelope with the boards inside; it took very few days..

     

    here a picture with my (fuzzy) phone..

     

    upduino iCE40 FPGA board from Gnarly Grey

    boy, how small they are!!

     

    now it's time to test the blinking led demo.

  • in reply to johnbeetem

    It's quite easy to program the Ice40 parts, either directly from a micro or indirectly by programming a serial flash and letting the Ice40 boot itself up from the flash chip. I have done designs using both methods with no problems. The best package for hand soldering is the 48 pin QFN (which I mistakenly called TQFP in a post above).

     

    If you have  away of programming a serial flash chip you can start up an Ice40

     

    The UP5K is  a very nice part, or will be when we can buy them.

     

    MK

  • Hey,

     

    I have a Microsemi IGLOO2 FPGA (M2GL025), FUTUREM2GL-EVB. that I would love to learn how to use but sadly the story is teh same as with so many things out there today, there is just not enough good useful information for beginners to get started with. If anyone has some suggestions how I could get started with this board I would love to hear from them.

     

    Kas

  • in reply to aventuri

    andrea venturi wrote:

     

    i suppose i have a winner here! :-)

    i've just found this Upduino board, a Lattice iCE40 based design for less then 8$ shipping included!! tell me about cheapness..

    BTW it looks like an Ultra Plus version of Lattice FPGA with ~5K LUT and boasting 8 MAC/DSP cores, 1Mbit of added RAM, I2C HW cores. it's a beefy IC (with respect to Lattice lineup, of course..)

     

    it's also promoted by Lattice Semi itself.. that's a kind of an endorsement!

     

    two downsides:

    * you need to stick with icecube2 for design, as it's still one of the few iCE40 devices still not supported by the free toolchain arachne-pnr/icestorm..

    * there's no programmer on board and so need a Raspi or similar SBC with SPI port.. a bit cumbersome..

     

    bests

    That's quite marvelous.  Thank you for posting.  Too bad it doesn't have IceStorm support.  Maybe some day...

     

    There are instructions about programming it with an FTDI FT232H.  I haven't read them so I don't know how easy this is to do.  You can get an FT232H Breakout Board from Adafruit that makes a dandy JTAG, SPI, or (with a little work) SWD programmer.  In the USA it's US$15 plus shipping.

  • in reply to aventuri

    The one Mouser have in stock is the tiny 30 ball 0.4mm pitch BGA, the Gnarly board uses the sensible 48 pin TQFP - I'd have  100 (chips) tomorrow if I could get them.

     

    MK