FPGA Development Board with hard PowerPC

[studywireless]

I am working on a channel emulator which is based on a FPGA development
board and a custom based RF board connected to the FPGA board via daughter
card connection (240 pins). I was using WARP 2 (Hard PowerPC Processor in
the FPGA) till now, but am looking for a new FPGA board as WARP 2 is
discontinued because Xilinx has stopped the manufacture of SystemAce. Below
are my requirements.

1. A hard processor (Preferably a PowerPC).
2. 240 I/O pin from the development board.
3. USB, Serial and Ethernet ports.
4. SD Card slot.
5. Clock support.

Can someone suggest me some options ? I checked Xilinx website and found
some FPGA based on Microblaze, but I am not sure if it can give me enough
throughput to run my computational intensive application. One more problem
with using Microblaze is that, my application uses many shared libraries
like Boost, MySql and I would have to cross compile them for Microblaze
which would be difficult as its not a well know architecture for
microprocessors. I understand Microblaze is well know in the world of FPGA,
but its not very well know in the application domain like ARM, PowerPC, x86
etc, please correct me if I am wrong.

If I go for V6/V7 FPGA of Xilinx, the development boards have few I/O pins
(100 - 160) and I need at least 250 pins. What are my other options ?



---------------------------------------
Posted through http://www.FPGARelated.com

[goou...@gmail.com]

Hi,
maybe the Xiliny Zynq 7000 Series is what you are loking for.
Dual Core ARM processor + FPGA fabric.

Have a nice synthesis
Eilert

[studywireless]

>>
>> Posted through http://www.FPGARelated.com
>
>Hi,
>maybe the Xiliny Zynq 7000 Series is what you are loking for.
>Dual Core ARM processor + FPGA fabric.
>
>Have a nice synthesis
> Eilert
>

Hi Eilert,
The problem with Xilinx Zynq are

1. Its relatively new and I am not sure if Xilinx can ship the board for us
as other customers are waiting for it. So its going to take some time when
Xilinx can start shipping to small customers like us (Its just my guess).

2. As the board is new, the software/tool support will be lagging the
hardware. It will take some time before things stabilize.

3. It has 68 differential I/O, so that gives me 136 I/O pins, but we need
more I/O pins.

[Ed McGettigan]

There are two Zynq boards available from Xilinx. The ZC702 with a 7Z020-CLG484 and the ZC706 with a 7Z045-FFG900 device and both boards are listed as in stock at Avnet.

The ZC702 only has a single FMC LPC interface with 136 I/O, but the ZC706 has two FMC LPC interfaces for a total of 272 I/O.

If you still want to use a PowerPC then the last version available would be on the ML507. This predates the adoption of the FMC standard and the expansion header only provides 64 I/O.

Ed McGettigan
--
Xilinx Inc.