Alchitry Drops a Pair of FPGA Boards and Add-Ons for New Kickstarter Campaign
Introducing the Alchity Au (gold) and the Alchitry Cu (copper).
In 2013, Alchitry launched their successful Kickstarter campaign of the Mojo: FPGA development board, allowing you to design your own digital circuits for any number of projects. Building on that success, Alchitry is back with a pair of new FPGA boards that pack more punch and features over the earlier Mojo but still retains the simplified digital design aspect.
The Alchirty Au (gold) is the designated workhorse of the pair, and rightfully so considering it sports an Artix-7 XC7A35T-1C that boasts an impressive 33,280 logic cells. It also sports 256Mb or DDR3 RAM, 102 I/O pins (3.3V logic level), and nine different analog inputs (1 dedicated, eight mixed with digital I/O). Rounding out the Au board are eight GP LEDs, one reset button, and 100MHz onboard clock, all of which are powered over a USB-C (5V) port or 0.1-inch holes.
The Cu (Copper) board differs from the Au by packing an iCE40 HX8K FPGA with 7680 logic cells. What makes this board different, is that it’s supported by the open source toolchain Project IceStorm, meaning the Cu can be developed entirely using open source tools.
Beyond the iCE40, the board is equipped with eight GP LEDs, 70 I/O pins, reset button, a 100MHz onboard clock, and is powered/programmed via a USB-C port (5V).
Alchitry is even offering a pair of expansion boards to complement their new FPGA line, including an I/O platform that includes four seven-segmented LED displays, five push buttons, 24 LEDs, and 24 DIP switches. The second offering is a breakout board that enables you to connect anything you want using the surface-mounted marked holes, making it easy to develop your projects with ease. What’s more, the boards can be stacked on top of each other and will feature cutouts to allow access to buttons and LEDs.
Alchitry is currently crowdfunding all four boards on Kickstarter. Those interested can pledge $20 and up, which offers different packages at set price points. $20 gets you a pair of blank FPGA prototype boards, $50 for the Cu board, and $185 gets you the whole lot — both FPGA boards and the expansion shields.