Products

With the first prototypes on the way, it’s time to take a closer look at what exactly FPGA Drive is and how it can help you to develop new disruptive technologies with FPGAs and SSDs. Here’s what you need to know in 3 points:

1. FPGA Drive enables you to connect a high-speed Solid State Drive (SSD) to an FPGA
2. FPGA Drive delivers high-capacity, extreme-throughput non-volatile storage to FPGA development boards
3. FPGA Drive connects a 4-lane PCI Express bus between your FPGA and SSD

The 3D rendered image shows the following key features:

Almost a year ago I did a comparison of Zynq SoMs, or System-on-Modules, these handy little Zynq-based devices that speed up your product development by taking the risk out of your PCB design and often handing you a ton of working example code. Well there have been many more Zynq SoMs come onto the market since then, so another comparison is due, but today I just wanted to review one of them: ZynqBoard, the smallest Zynq SoM on the market today according to zynqboard.com. This new device measures only 42mm x 22mm! To get it so small it’s developers have stripped it down to only the essentials: Zynq, DDR3, flash memory, clock oscillator and expansion connectors.

Xilinx just released a video presenting the next-generation of All Programmable devices and dev environments. It’s a quick look at where technology is going and particularly where FPGAs are going to make their mark.

Of particular interest to me were the images of a Virtex Ultrascale PCI Express board at 2:45 in the video. This board appears to have both the PCIe gold-finger edge connector and a PCIe saddle-mount socket connector, so it could be used as either the PCIe end-point or the root complex - or maybe both at the same time. Most of Xilinx’s dev boards have the PCIe edge connector but as far as I know, the only FPGA dev board with a PCIe socket is the Mini-ITX from Avnet.

Very excited to be showing off my new Samsung SSD 950 in the M.2 form factor. This tiny solid-state drive has a PCI Express Gen3 x 4-lane interface for a more direct connection to the CPU which enables a much higher throughput than a SATA interface. According to Samsung:

It outperforms SATA SSDs by over 4.5 times in sequential read and by over 2.5 times in sequential write, delivering the speeds of 2,500 MB/s and 1,500 MB/s respectively.

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I recently got myself a PicoZed 7Z030 SoM (system-on-module) so that I could start developing more resource intensive applications for the Ethernet FMC, such as network tapping and network latency measurement. Why would I use a SoM for this? Checkout my comparison of Zynq SoMs to learn more about the benefits of SoMs in product development.

It’s worth mentioning this arrived the day after I ordered it. Here are some photos I took while unboxing:

I just got the news about the new ARTY $99 FPGA evaluation kit being released and I thought it was worth a mention. At the $99 price point and with the Arduino shield connector, they’ll attract a lot of hobbyists who can now hook up one of the many existing Arduino shields to a Series-7 FPGA. Another interesting thing is that it ships with a webserver reference design so  you’ve got a head-start on your IoT applications. Definitely a lot of possibilities with this board and I might just get one for myself.

Announcing that the Robust Ethernet FMC is now in stock and available for purchase. Checkout the flashy new images of the first units, ravaging Ethernet packets in this tough new form factor.

Here’s a look at a batch of Ethernet FMCs fresh off the production line.

Here are the first images of my new product: the Robust Ethernet FMC.

This new variation of the Ethernet FMC contains all the features of the standard version but has been designed to fit the 10mm height profile of the Vita 57.1 standard. The Robust Ethernet FMC is perfect for the more rugged gigabit Ethernet applications, and here’s why:

• 4 x 10mm stand-offs positioned to fit the mounting holes of the Vita 57.1 standard
• Separated RJ45 and magnetics with filtering on every coil for greater isolation and protection
• LEDs don’t cross the isolation barrier for maximum ESD protection

Contact me if you’d like more information on this product or others.

In the last year or so, there has been an explosion in the availability of System-on-Modules (SoMs) featuring the popular FPGA+ARM combo Zynq-7000 SoC from Xilinx. I’ve always promoted the idea that FPGAs and SoCs allow for faster design cycles and rapid proof-of-concept, but these SoMs take that advantage to another level. Let me explain why. In the past, I would handle most projects by doing a proof-of-concept on an evaluation board, then designing a custom board that integrates all the required components onto a single PCB. While this process is fairly straightforward and minimizes my risk in designing the final custom board, it still has its drawbacks: