This video is in TechXchange: RISC-V: The Instruction-Set Alternative. Also, check out more Kit Close-up videos.
You can view the video (above) where I unbox Microchip's PolarFire Icicle Development Kit (Fig. 1). It's built around the PolarFire system-on-chip (SoC) that includes a 250K logic element (LE) FPGA and a five-core RISC-V system.
The PolarFire MPFS250T-FCVG484EES (Fig. 2) includes one 64-bit, RISC-V IMAC integer core and a complex of four 64-bit, RISC-V RVGC cores that can run operating systems such as Linux. The integer core includes secure-boot support and can manage the other processor cores as well as peripherals, providing a real-time software environment.
The development kit PCB is filled with interfaces and off-chip memory (Fig. 3). This includes 1 Gb of SPI serial flash memory, 2 GB of DRAM, and an SDIO interface that can work with either the on-board 8 GB eMMC flash chip or an SD card plugged into the SD card socket. There are dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, CAN interfaces, and JTAG support. The Raspberry Pi and MikroBUS headers provide access to a wide array of peripheral modules that can plug into the system.
Microchip provides a number of development tools to help PolarFire developers (Fig. 4). The PolarFire SoC MSS Configurator generates configuration files for the Libero SoC IDE and the SoftConsole IDE. Libero SoC IDE is for FPGA development and the free Eclipse-based, SoftConsole IDE provides RISC-V software-development tools like C/C++ compilers and debuggers.
The development kit has its own SmartFusion 2 SoC/FPGA for programming. This is accessed via a micro-USB connection.
Links
- Microchip
- PolarFire FPGA SoC
- PolarFire Development Software
- PolarFire Icicle Development Kit
- SmartFusion 2 SoC/FPGA
Microchip PolarFire Video
Here's another video on the PolarFire SoC Icicle Kit courtesy of Microchip.