SoC from Microsemi - FPGA and ARM CM3

I know Xilinx and Altera have their SoC devices which are a bit high end 
with dual A9 type ARMs.  I recently found out the Microsemi SoC which 
uses a CM3 can be bought for just $16 and a KickStart board is available 
for just $59.  I like it.

The FPGA fabric is flash based rather than SRAM so you don't need to 
configure it each time it powers up.  The CPU has up to 512 kB flash and 
144 kB of SRAM.  CAN, Ethernet and HS USB are included along with a 
number of simpler interfaces, DDR, SERDES and PCI3.  Sounds like a 
pretty interesting device.

6k to 146k LUT4s, up to 240 math blocks and two sizes of block memory.

Anyone looking at using it?  I'm thinking of getting the $59 board.

-- 

Rick

On 10/7/15 1:07 AM, rickman wrote:
> I know Xilinx and Altera have their SoC devices which are a bit high end
> with dual A9 type ARMs.  I recently found out the Microsemi SoC which
> uses a CM3 can be bought for just $16 and a KickStart board is available
> for just $59.  I like it.
>
> The FPGA fabric is flash based rather than SRAM so you don't need to
> configure it each time it powers up.  The CPU has up to 512 kB flash and
> 144 kB of SRAM.  CAN, Ethernet and HS USB are included along with a
> number of simpler interfaces, DDR, SERDES and PCI3.  Sounds like a
> pretty interesting device.
>
> 6k to 146k LUT4s, up to 240 math blocks and two sizes of block memory.
>
> Anyone looking at using it?  I'm thinking of getting the $59 board.
>

I have looked at that part for some possible projects myself.

On 07/10/2015 06:07, rickman wrote:
> I know Xilinx and Altera have their SoC devices which are a bit high end
> with dual A9 type ARMs.  I recently found out the Microsemi SoC which
> uses a CM3 can be bought for just $16 and a KickStart board is available
> for just $59.  I like it.
>
> The FPGA fabric is flash based rather than SRAM so you don't need to
> configure it each time it powers up.  The CPU has up to 512 kB flash and
> 144 kB of SRAM.  CAN, Ethernet and HS USB are included along with a
> number of simpler interfaces, DDR, SERDES and PCI3.  Sounds like a
> pretty interesting device.
>
> 6k to 146k LUT4s, up to 240 math blocks and two sizes of block memory.
>
> Anyone looking at using it?  I'm thinking of getting the $59 board.
>


These are indeed very interesting parts, especially as they are flash 
based, which is attractive to safety related applications.  We have 
three demo projects, some dating back to when they were Actel.  Probably 
the newest demo we have is this one:
http://www.freertos.org/SmartFusion2_RTOS.html

Regards,
Richard.

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rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> writes:
> I recently found out the Microsemi SoC which uses a CM3 can be bought
> for just $16...
> 6k to 146k LUT4s, up to 240 math blocks and two sizes of block memory.

Looks like the bigger ones are very expensive, which I guess is typical
of big FPGA's.

On 10/8/2015 8:58 PM, Paul Rubin wrote:
> rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> writes:
>> I recently found out the Microsemi SoC which uses a CM3 can be bought
>> for just $16...
>> 6k to 146k LUT4s, up to 240 math blocks and two sizes of block memory.
>
> Looks like the bigger ones are very expensive, which I guess is typical
> of big FPGA's.

When they were early out I ignored them as the lowest priced one was 
$50.  But at closer to $16 they seem to be much more practical.  I think 
I am also ok with the 256 pin BGA.  In the past when I looked at BGAs 
they all required fine pitch PCBs and very fine vias.  Looks like this 
part will work ok with 5/5 mil PCB trace/space and 10 mil drills.  I 
need to verify that, but if so, I no longer have much objection.

-- 

Rick