PerfXLab Releases Their Perf-V FPGA RISC-V-Based Development Board

The RISC-V architecture is expanding in popularity for FPGA boards, with several already on the market, such as SiFive’s HiFive1 and Kendryte’s KD233. We can now add another RISC-V board to the pile with PerfXLab’s Perf-V FPGA development board, which is designed to be open source, and compatible with Arduino.

“Perf-V has great flexibility and transplant multiple architectures. We prepare abundant materials for you to learn our product and offer a perfect experiment platform for the design of RISC-V and FPGA products.”

On the hardware end, the Perf-V packs a Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA (256MB of DDR3, 8MB of FPGA Flash, 8MB of RISC-V Flash) in several options with a varying degree of logic cells, DSPs, CLBs, Block RAM, and CMTs. The entry-level or basic board (XC7A35T-1FTG256C) is outfitted with 33280 logic cells, 90 DSPs, 41600 CLBs, 1800Kb Block RAM, and 5 CMTs. Of course, each subsequent model ups those numbers exponentially.

Expansion options include Arduino-compatible headers, a Pmod connector, JTAG, UART, and a high-speed unpopulated interface for HDMI, USB 2.0/3.0, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. The board also comes with a series of toggle switches, soft-touch buttons, user programmable LEDs, status LEDs, and a power button.

PerfXLab states the Perf-V can be programmed using Xilinx’s SDK, and they provide documentation on Xilinx’s 7-Series FPGAs on their product download page, but not much more. Additional information can be found on their forum, although it’s in Chinese, but easily translated. The Perf-V is available for pre-order on Seeed Studio for $79.