FPGA Boards

Nexys 4

This board has a Xilinx Artix-7 chip, so it can be programmed using Vivado. It isn't a top-of-the-line chip, though it has logic element and other resource counts that are similar to the Virtex-5 chips we use. For many designs, it should be sufficient, and the payoff from using SystemVerilog in Vivado should be helpful.

• Nexys4 FPGA Board Reference Manual
• Nexys4 Master XDC file for Vivado designs

Zynq-7000 - ZedBoard

This is a fairly accessible board with a Zynq 7020 FPGA/SOC chip. As a member of the Zynq family, it combines a hard CPU and programable logic fabric. The CPU is a dual-core ARM9 processor. Communication from the processor to the programmable logic is optimized and fairly fast.

This board programs with Vivado.

• Website for this board
• Users Guide
• Getting Started Guide

Zynq-7000 - ZC706 Board

This board boasts a Zynq 7045 FPGA/SOC chip. As a member of the Zynq family, it combines a hard CPU and programable logic fabric. The CPU is a dual-core ARM9 processor. Communication from the processor to the programmable logic is optimized and fairly fast. This board has a PCI connector, so would work for co-processor sorts of applications.

This board programs with Vivado. This is also a good target board for High-level Synthesys projects.

• Xilinx website for this board
• Users Guide
• Some slides on using PCIe on the ZC706

Kintex 7 - KC705 Board

This board boasts a Kintex chip, the mid-level family of Xilinx FPGAs. This particular chip is the XC7K325T which is pretty sweet. It is designed to showcase high-performance serial connectivity (PCIe, Networking) and advanced memory interfacing (DDR3 SoDIM Memory). You might like it if you desire PCIe for your project or need a huge number of fabric resources (CLBs). Also, comes with a fair amount of interesting peripherals.

This board programs with Vivado. This is also a good target board for High-level Synthesys projects.

• Xilinx website for this board
• Users Guide
• PCIe Tutorial (Xilinx website)

Virtex 7 - VC707 Board

This board has the Virtex 7 chip (a VC7VX485T-2FFG1761C) with just about all the resources you will ever need. The display output is HDMI only, which past groups have had trouble generating a hardware interface for, so be aware. This board also sports a daughter board with some ADCs and analog circuit magic. If you wish to do some digital signal processing, this board might be your best bet.

You may use Vivado with this board. ISE also will work, though I am not sure why you would want that.

• Xilinx Product Page
• User Guide