Alchitry Au V2 Artix 7 FPGA Board
Overview
The Alchitry Au V2 is a powerful FPGA development board featuring the Xilinx Artix 7 XC7A35T IC, designed to bridge the gap between hobbyist microcontrollers and professional digital logic design. It includes a high-speed USB-C interface for programming and data transfer, alongside 256MB of DDR3 RAM to support memory-intensive applications. The board uses a standardized gold-finger connector system for expanding I/O through various Alchitry elements.
Why Choose This Part
The board provides a massive step up in logic density with over 33,000 logic cells and dedicated DSP slices for complex math. Its inclusion of 256MB DDR3 SDRAM is a significant advantage for buffering large datasets or running soft-core processors like RISC-V or MicroBlaze. The Alchitry ecosystem also simplifies the hardware setup with a robust set of expansion boards called elements.
Applications
Key Specifications
Getting Started
To begin development, download the Alchitry Labs IDE which supports both Lucid (a simplified HDL) and Verilog. The board is programmed via USB-C and is compatible with Xilinx Vivado for advanced users who require the full professional suite for the Artix 7 XC7A35T. SparkFun and Alchitry provide extensive tutorials for setting up the toolchain and deploying your first logic gate or counter.
