Olimex Exhibits Off Its GateMateA1-EVB, a Low-Price Open-{Hardware} Board for the Cologne Chip GateMate A1

Bulgarian open supply {hardware} specialist Olimex has unveiled the finalized design for its Cologne Chip GateMate A1 field-programmable gate array (FPGA) growth board — providing an open supply machine for experimentation with the versatile chip.

The GateMate was introduced earlier this 12 months, promising a novel structure primarily based across the “Cologne Programmable Factor.” Packing 20,480 within the CCGM1A1, Cologne Chip aimed to supply an FPGA with extra flexibility than its rivals — by permitting the CPEs to be configured as both 20,480 eight-input LUT timber or 40,960 four-input LUT timber with 40,960 flip-flops or latches.

The chip can also be supported by a free and open supply toolchain, utilizing the Yosys framework for synthesis although a proprietary however free-to-use place and route (PNR) bundle — one thing the corporate pledged on the time to ultimately substitute with assist for the open supply nextpnr. Olimex was the primary to announce an in-house GateMate provider board, designed to compete with Cologne Chip’s reference design, which has now been unveiled forward of manufacturing.

“[Cologne Chip’s] GateMate A1 chip has good options,” Olimex founder Tsvetan Usunov writes of the corporate’s first in a deliberate sequence of CPE-based FPGAs. “What we actually like is their open supply dedication — they provide open supply instruments for programming. Our intention is to make this probably the most inexpensive FPGA [board] of its class.”

Olimex’s GateMateA1-EVB growth board takes a single GateMate CCGM1A1 chip and locations it on an open-hardware breakout with 64Mb of pseudo-static RAM (PSRAM), a VGA video output, PS/2 keyboard enter, 4 general-purpose enter/output (GPIO) banks with switchable 1.2/1.8/2.5V energy provides and logic ranges, and each PMOD and Olimex’s personal UEXT connectors for exterior {hardware}.

There’s additionally a companion processor within the type of a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller with 2MB of off-chip flash, dealing with “programming, debugging, [and] IO,” Usunov explains.

Presently awaiting design verification forward of quantity manufacturing, the GateMateA1-EVB will launch at a worth of €50 (round $54,) Usunov guarantees — with extra info obtainable on the corporate’s weblog.