Arduino Unveils its First FPGA Board with MKR Vidor 4000, and an updated Uno WiFi Board

An FPGA is a Field Programmable Gate Array. In other words, it is reconfigurable hardware. Unlike a microcontroller, an FPGA is not running software. Instead, its gate arrays change configuration for a specific task. FPGAs has been considered a hard topic for some hardware enthusiasts to understand and implement, but with the launch of this FPGA focused maker’s board this barrier might just be coming down. FPGA gives us true parallel processing as compared to the use of an interrupts driven implementation in microcontroller system. The Vidor 4000 FPGA board is also capable of audio and video processing.

“The new MKR Vidor 4000 will finally make FPGA accessible to makers and innovators,” said Massimo Banzi, Arduino co-founder. “And we are looking forward to changing the game yet again.”

Below are the MKR Vidor 4000 specifications:

• FPGA part
  • FPGA – Intel Cyclone FPGA with 16K Logic Elements, 504Kbit of embedded RAM and 56 18×18 bit HW multipliers for high-speed DSP
  • System Memory – 8 MB SDRAM
  • Storage – 2 MB QSPI Flash (1MB for user applications)
  • Micro HDMI connector
  • MIPI camera connector
  • mini PCIe connector with up to 25 user programmable pins
• MCU – Microchip SAMD21 Cortex-M0+ 32bit low power Arm MCU  @ 48 MHz with 256 KB flash, 32 KB SRAM
• Connectivity – Wifi & BLE powered by U-BLOX NINA W10 Series module
• I/Os driven both by SAMD21 and FPGA
  • 8x Digital I/O Pins
  • 12x PWM Pins (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, A3 – or 18 -, A4 -or 19)
  • 1x UART, 1x SPI, 1x I2C
  • 7x analog input pins (ADC 8/10/12 bit)
  • 1x analog output pins (DAC 10-bit)
  • 8x external Interrupts (0, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, A1 -or 16-, A2 – or 17)
  • DC Current per I/O Pin – 7 mA
• USB – 1x micro USB device/host port
• HW Security – ECC508 crypto chip
• Power Supply
  • 5V via USB/VIN
  • Battery – Supports Li-Po single cell, 3.7V, 700mAh minimum
  • Circuit Operating Voltage – 3.3V
• Dimensions – 61.5 x 25 mm