Recently discovered an interesting development board that is based on RISC-V and FPGA.

This form is my first encounter.

It is the

BeagleV®-Fire

BeagleV®-Fire adopts Microchip’s PolarFire® FCVG484E 5-core RISC-V system-on-chip and FPGA architecture.

It has 4 64-bit RV64GC application cores and 1 64-bit RV64IMAC monitor/boot core, with a performance of 3.125 CoreMarks/MHz and 1.714 DMIPS/MHz.

The FPGA part has 23,000 logic elements (4-input LUT + DFF), 68 math blocks (18×18 MACC), and four 12.7Gbps SerDes channels.

In terms of configuration, it has 2GB LPDDR4 memory and 16GB Kingston eMMC.

Interfaces include a Gigabit Ethernet port, M.2 E-Key for Wi-Fi module installation, a 22-pin MIPI CSI, and a SYZYGY high-speed connector (which I don’t know what it’s for, probably a Beagle-specific interface).

It also has UART and JTAG interfaces.

Power can be supplied via USB Type-C (5V3A) or through terminal blocks, which is a very convenient and practical feature. Many development boards have lost this feature, probably because they are afraid of reversing polarity and blowing up the board. If you are not confident in power management, you might not dare to connect it randomly.

This development board also has a very good point: the GPIO interface is very rich, with two dual-row 23-pin female headers, a total of 92 pins, making it quite extensible.

The Beagle development board is open-source hardware, and you can find their design materials, which are quite rich.

This development board is pre-installed with Ubuntu.

BeagleBoard CEO Christine Long stated:

The BeagleV®-Fire represents a shift for BeagleBoard and its board series users. The BeagleV®-Fire platform will provide opportunities for developers, enthusiasts, and researchers to explore and experiment with RISC-V technology.

The main goal of BeagleBoard is to cultivate and collaborate with those interested in open-source software and hardware for embedded computing. The BeagleBoard community provides a platform for owners and developers of open-source software and hardware to co-develop physical computing solutions such as robots, 3D printers, laser cutters, and industrial and machine control. BeagleBoard single-board computers are ideal for creating open-source hardware applications, including home and commercial automation systems and artificial intelligence.

However, I found that this development board is not the first RISC-V development board from Beagle; the first one isBeagleV-Ahead

Equipped with Alibaba Pingtouge TH1520 SoC, quad-core RISC-V 64GC XuanTie 910 with a frequency of up to 2GHz, featuring 4TOPS@INT8 NPU, frequency of 1GHz, and GPU using Imagination BXM-4-64, 50GFLOPS.

H.265/H.264 @ 4Kp75 decoding

H.265/H.264 @ 4Kp40 encoding

In terms of configuration, it has 4GB LPDDR4 memory, 16GB eMMC, comes with an AP6203BM Wi-Fi5 module, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a MicroHDMI interface, and also features two MIPI CSI camera interfaces, one MIPI DSI display interface, and a MikroBUS connector.

Seeing these two development boards from Beagle, I think Beagle is still very strong, with its own hardware ecosystem, such as the MikroBUS connector, which I haven’t seen on many development boards. However, these hardware interfaces also form a certain ecosystem, which interested parties can search for themselves.

Moreover, in terms of chip selection, they are not limited to specific companies. Rather, many chips are used, including Alibaba Pingtouge’s chips, which is relatively rare for foreign development boards to use domestic chips. I must say, Alibaba Pingtouge is quite capable this time.

Well, I will stop here. If you have anything to say, remember to comment, and see you next time.

Orange Pi 5

https://m.tb.cn/h.5mmpQbW?tk=1CtrWfhigl0

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