Avnet releases Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA evaluation and development kits
By Rick Nelson, Editor-in-Chief -- EDN, November 12, 2009
The Avnet Electronics Marketing operating group of Avnet Inc has announced the Xilinx Spartan-6 LX16 FPGA evaluation kit and Spartan-6 LX150T FPGA development kit. Both kits support the new FMC (FPGA-mezzanine-card)-expansion standard, which enables the addition of add-on modules and customization when working with FPGAs.
Avnet based the Spartan-6 LX16 evaluation kit on the Spartan-6 LX16 FPGA. It showcases a system-level approach to low-power design for the Spartan-6 family. Targeting use as a general-purpose FPGA development board, the kit is also suitable for portable instrumentation and battery-powered applications. To emphasize low-power applications, the kit receives its power from an included lithium-ion battery. It can also use a USB (Universal Serial Bus)-cable connection or a 12V adapter and has six high-efficiency portable-power-management ICs from Texas Instruments. A new PSoC (programmable system on chip) 3 from Cypress adds 20-bit precision analog, system-power management, USB/UART/SPI (serial-peripheral-interface) connectivity, LCD direct drive, CapSense touch sensing, and FPGA-configuration support. The $225 board provides a low-pin-count FMC-expansion connector for adding FMC daughtercards. Avnet plans to begin shipping the kit by year-end. Xilinx will offer a $295-base-price version that emphasizes flexibility.
Employing the Spartan-6 LX150T FPGA with its on-chip 2.5-Gbps transceivers, the kit provides a platform for developing low-cost , high-speed systems. The board features DDR3 memory, a 10/100/1000-GbE (gigabit-Ethernet) interface, and two low-pin-count FMC-expansion connectors; it sells for $995.
This article originally appeared in the September 22, 2009 edition of EDN's sister publication, Test & Measurement World. Please click here to view that article.
