QuickFeather: Fully open source development board for the EOS S3 MCU with eFPGA

Use the Power of Open Source to Tackle Your Tiny Machine Learning Applications

QuickLogic, the first programmable logic company to embrace all-open-source development tools has partnered with Antmicro to create a multi-core essential evaluation tool for machine learning and IoT applications, called QuickFeather development board.

The QuickFeather development board is a small form factor system for the EOS S3 Arm Cortex M4F MCU and embedded FPGA with an onboard microphone, pressure sensor, and accelerometer. One beautiful thing about this development board is that it is everything open-source!. The board itself is open hardware, designed in an open-source Kicad platform, and built around open source embedded OS, Zephyr RTOS and FreeRTOS with open FPGA tools. It’s rich combination of on-board sensors, low-power MCU and programmable logic in a feather form factor, also make it a perfect open-source hardware platform for developing tiny Machine Learning applications with Google TensorFlow Lite and SensilML’s software. Hobbyists and enthusiasts would also find the board good for ALL kinds of general-purpose MCU applications.

Technical Features and specifications include:

• Arm Cortex ® M4F microcontroller unit running @ 80 MHz and up to 512 SRAM
• Embedded FPGA – 64 Kb RAM and 2400 logic cells
• 16 Mbit SPI NOR flash memory
• 58.4 mm x 22.9 mm footprint
• 2.54 mm breadboard compatible pitch headers.
• 33 GPIO (20 of which are feather-defined)
• I2C, I2S, SPI, UART
• RGB LED, User buttons and Hardware Reset buttons
• USB data signals tied to the embedded FPGA programmable logic
• Communication protocol via USB/UART
• SWD programming connector
• Infineon DSP310 pressure sensor
• Infineon IM69D130 digital PDM microphone
• mCube MC3635 accelerometer
• 3.3V USB micro Type-B and standard Li-Po JST connectors,
• On-board charging circuitry
• Can be powered from USB or LiPo battery, and
• Supports real-time operating system –  Zephyr RTOS and FreeRTOS

The QuickFeather development board is programmed using QuickLogic’s USB-enabled TinyFPGA bootloader, an equally open-source IP for programming FPGAs. A video guide on how to install the TinyFPGA bootloader as well as hardware design files, user guide and documentation can be found on Crowd Supply or on QuickLogic’s product’s page.

More on order details, paying and shipping can also be found in their guide page. The board is expected to start shipping at the end of July, 2020. Hopefully, the COVID-19 pandemic will not cause any delay in the delivery timeline.

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