"Introduction: it's amazing and exquisite!!! Zircon A4 FPGA application trial
FPGA is field programmable gate array, which belongs to a kind of programmable logic device. With the progress of technology and the continuous development of EDA design tools, the threshold of FPGA (learning cost and price cost) is becoming lower and lower. At present, FPGA has become one of the mainstream platforms to realize digital system.
When engineers want to choose FPGA development board, without the guidance of a professional, they may be overwhelmed by the dazzling FPGA development platform on the market and don't know how to choose. Therefore, for beginners, a suitable FPGA development board platform can make your learning and R & D get twice the result with half the effort. Today, aiban.com will introduce an FPGA development platform with high versatility, low cost, rich data and exquisite board workmanship - A4 FPGA development board launched by zircon technology.
Zircon A4 FPGA development board unpacking
Don't think I'm exaggerating. In fact, when I didn't get the zircon A4 FPGA development board, I didn't think so. After all, I've been in contact with most FPGA development platforms on the market, such as development platforms dedicated to individual fields, general-purpose development platforms, or various "messy" learning and development platforms, Some are good in use and workmanship, that is, the price is thousands at any time, and some are cheap. However, the board workmanship, development materials and documents are incomplete and not suitable for beginners. In short, we can always find out the scattered shortcomings, and some even fatal shortcomings. However, the zircon A4 development board is a little unexpected. After getting it, it has always amazed me. I always feel that the language expression is weak. I'll show you directly in the figure above.
When I first opened the package, there was a warm tip "this is a gift", which was almost a soul chicken soup, which showed that the manufacturer was very attentive.
The real outer packaging box of zircon A4 FPGA development board is still very tall. The three logos at the bottom show zircon's own English logo zircon and the main chip of the development platform. The cyclone IV series FPGA of Altera company is selected. Maybe many people will have some regrets when they see this. Why not cyclone V series FPGA? But if you consider that the zircon A4 FPGA development board is only 699rmb low, you won't have this idea. Do you want everyone to claim to establish a hardware free ecosystem like boss Jia who plays A-share?
Considering many OCD engineers, the zircon A4 FPGA development board comes with an Alec shell.
Moreover, a layer of foam is padded between the Alec shell and the main board to further protect the development board against earthquake. The details are considered incisively and exquisitely, which reminds the author of Meizu who once focused on precision and beauty.
If you carefully observe the board layout of A4 FPGA, you will feel incredible for its delicacy. It seems to absorb the symmetrical aesthetic design claimed by current mobile phone manufacturers. The layout layout of the board is very neat and symmetrical, which makes people inexplicably attracted.
Accessories included in the entire A4 FPGA development kit include:
Zircon A4 development board * 1
Microusb cable * 1
Infrared remote control * 1
Data CD (documentation, software code, video) * 2. Manual * 1
In addition to the A4 FPGA development board itself, the author believes that the biggest highlight of the kit is the two attached CDs. The material content and video content are unimaginable and are completely textbook guidance. It is many times better than the FPGA development platform designed by some original manufacturers or distributors in the market, It is especially suitable for beginners who are getting started with FPGA. In addition, zircon technology is also considerate in providing an infrared transmitting remote controller for the infrared receiving function of the development board. Although it is not worth a few money, the details are well considered. Of course, it is a pity that the kit is not equipped with an additional power adapter when considering that engineers need to expand a large number of resource peripherals.
FPGA development board recommendations:
Red pitaya arm v1.1 control board is a development board with dual core arm cortex A9 + FPGA and fast and slow analog input and output.
Ice40 ult development tool A programmable logic IC development tool based on mobile devices that provides unique sensor characteristics and functions, while consuming less power than previous devices.
Lattice ice5lp4k-wdev development platform An FPGA development board that supports sensors that can measure heart rate and blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), skin temperature and pressure.
Hardware design of zircon A4 FPGA development board
Focus on the motherboard. Let's first understand the peripherals and onboard resources of the zircon A4 FPGA development board.
The onboard resources of A4 FPGA development board have basically been presented on the back of the packaging box. In this regard, it belongs to a relatively "honest" enterprise, which is in line with the nature of engaging in academic research, preaching and teaching to solve doubts. Students and engineers who start with the board have a general understanding of the board before they see the real body of the board. What are the characteristics? What functions can be learned or developed.
However, there seems to be an error in the parameter description of the screen size, indicating "2.4 inches". It seems that this error is often made in China, but it should not be here. Compared with the actual A4 FPGA development board, we actually look at these functions on the board.
Zircon A4 FPGA is mainly controlled by Altera cyclone IV series FPGA, which is a product of Altera in 2009. It adopts 60NM process. In terms of time, it can be said that the product belongs to the previous generation. On the other hand, we can see that the cycle of FPGA is very long and the product is not easy to be eliminated. In addition, after such a long time, cyclone IV series FPGA can be said to be durable, The product has been tested stably and reliably for a long time, which is very suitable for the current application fields sensitive to reliability and cost.
From the chip on A4 FPGA board, we can also see that the specific model is ep4ce10f17c8n, as shown in the figure below.
FPGA development board recommendations:
Red pitaya arm v1.1 control board is a development board with dual core arm cortex A9 + FPGA and fast and slow analog input and output.
Ice40 ult development tool A programmable logic IC development tool based on mobile devices that provides unique sensor characteristics and functions, while consuming less power than previous devices.
Lattice ice5lp4k-wdev development platform An FPGA development board that supports sensors that can measure heart rate and blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), skin temperature and pressure.
From Altera's naming rules for FPGA chips, ep4ce10f17c8n FPGA belongs to cyclone IV series, with 10320 logic units and 256pin BGA package. It is suitable for commercial temperature level (0 ~ 85 ℃), speed level 8 and other information.
Ep4ce10 FPGA on zircon A4 FPGA board is a real entry-level FPGA chip. It balances the consideration of logic resources and cost, and uses relatively high cost performance to help users realize the introduction or development of FPGA. Moreover, the development of FPGA is basically one-way. If you really master FPGA development, you can also change to a higher specification FPGA chip, which is not contradictory. This is also the choice of FPGA development and learning platform. You should not pursue too high configuration. You should balance learning cost and cost performance.
OK, after understanding the positioning of the main FPGA, let's look at the peripherals on one side of the development board. The zircon A4 FPGA motherboard uses mciro USB cable for power supply, including additional switch control power on / off, which is not the kind that can be powered on by inserting USB. The author still likes this design very much. It doesn't need to plug and unplug the USB cable every time the board is powered on / off; In addition, the microusb interface has designed the function of USB to serial port through cp2012 chip. Therefore, microusb can also be used as a serial port in addition to power supply. One port has multiple functions, which is also in line with the properties of the current board, but it has increased a lot of costs for developers.
The microSD card holder, VGA interface, infrared interface and PS / 2 interface on this side of the development board are configured through Altera FPGA, and the ad / DA SMA interface (protected by black rubber sleeve in the above figure) is extended through additional ad / DA chips, and all adopt the chips of Dezhou instrument. It is not ambiguous:
10 bit DAC: TLC5615
8-bit ADC: TLC549
On the other side of the development board, it includes 2.4-inch LCD screen with charged resistance screen, dial switch, touch key, mechanical key, reset key, nixie tube and other functions. The touch key is extended through contact plate detection IC ttp226. This function is still very much used in human-computer interaction equipment in industrial equipment and consumer places, which is very close to reality.
In addition, the A4 FPGA development board also extends many IO oral engineer DIY peripheral functions. Of course, it is more likely that zircon will launch its own peripheral function modules for netizens to choose in the future.
Generally, I scanned all the hardware of A4 FPGA. The most regrettable thing is that there is no on-board programmer. The development board only provides JTAG programming interface and supports Altera's USB blaster download cable. If you don't have Altera's programming download cable, you need to purchase some equipment to really develop. Zircon technology has long considered this situation for users, Although there is no on-board programmer, at present, it is indeed a kind enterprise to obtain USB blaster (purchase address) only by adding 1 yuan when purchasing A4 FPGA board.
FPGA development board recommendations:
Red pitaya arm v1.1 control board is a development board with dual core arm cortex A9 + FPGA and fast and slow analog input and output.
Ice40 ult development tool A programmable logic IC development tool based on mobile devices that provides unique sensor characteristics and functions, while consuming less power than previous devices.
Lattice ice5lp4k-wdev development platform An FPGA development board that supports sensors that can measure heart rate and blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), skin temperature and pressure.
development environment
After basically understanding the hardware composition of A4 FPGA, let's take a look at its development environment. At present, there are only a few famous FPGA manufacturers in the world, such as Xilinx, Altera and lattice. We can count them with one hand. Unfortunately, each FPGA manufacturer has different products and uses different EDA tools. If we want to choose FPGA products from different manufacturers, we need to be familiar with EDA tools again, which may be a little unacceptable to many engineers, But there's nothing I can do. I have to adapt if I don't accept it.
With the integration of semiconductor industry, Altera has been acquired by Intel, and it will probably introduce more awesome products in the future. It will even change the products of the world. So we can learn from Altera FPGA. Of course, this is the author's very subjective point of view. Everyone can express their views. I believe many Xilinx powder engineers have to beat bricks at me. Because the zircon A4 FPGA development board adopts Altera's FPGA platform, we can only choose Altera's EDA tool quartus. Quartus is Altera's comprehensive FPGA development software. It has various design input forms such as schematic diagram, VHDL, Verilog HDL, embedded synthesizer and simulator, which can complete the complete FPGA process from design input to hardware configuration. At present, the latest tool is quartus prime version 16.0, which has a large file. It is divided into main file, Modelsim file and device support file, which can be downloaded as required. It should be noted that quartus prime provides professional version, standard version and completely free simplified version（ The professional version and the standard version need to purchase a license, otherwise the service life is only 30 days)
Quartus has undergone many update iterations from I to II and then to prime. The function and compilation efficiency of the latest version of quartus prime have been significantly improved. Moreover, engineers who have just started FPGA may choose the latest version to download, but the A4 FPGA development platform recommends using Quartus II 13.1. According to the survey, this is the most used and stable version by engineers, I don't know what engineers think?
Power on use
After understanding the hardware composition and software development environment of zircon A4 FPGA development board, let's actually experience it.
If the zircon A4 FPGA development board has given you a lot of surprises in hardware, the next power on experience will definitely shock you. Please note that this is no exaggeration!!!
After the board was powered on, a welcome opening animation appeared on the LCD screen, and then entered zircon OS designed by zircon itself. It was developed based on Altera FPGA and Nios II. The interface looks very good, a bit like the UI on a smartphone.
The screen is enlarged. The main menu includes introduction, test, demonstration, prompt, etc. under the introduction is the introduction of each menu function, and the prompt is some precautions for using the board. For engineers, more attention is focused on the routines in test and demonstration.
The test routines under the test menu basically include all the functions of onboard resources and peripherals on the development board. In addition, there are peripheral functions to be developed in the future (various functional modules launched by zircon technology may be required), including a series of test routines such as camera, audio, 100M / Gigabit Network and video development.
At present, there are four actual projects under the demonstration menu, including three person voter, digital clock, data transmission and simple oscilloscope.
There are too many routines, and it is not suitable to demonstrate them one by one in this paper. The author selects several representative routines to show you the effect.
Infrared remote control
VGA output
Ad / DA conversion
The waveform can be adjusted through the dial switch
FPGA development board recommendations:
The red pitaya arm v1.1 control board adopts dual core arm cortex A9 + FPGA and provides both fast and slow modes
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