Avnet Electronics Marketing, an operating group of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), today introduced the FMC Carrier Card and the Breakout Carrier Card, extensions of the MicroZed™ Evaluation Kit and System-on-Module (SOM), offering hardware and software designers cost-effective platforms that can be used to prototype a wide variety of applications in the industrial, medical, security and communications markets.
The Breakout Carrier Card is the lowest cost option for accessing the MicroZed programmable logic (PL) I/O. It provides easy access to the full 100 PL I/O available from the MicroZed SOM, breaking each signal out to a standard 0.1” header footprint. Engineers can use these header connections to interface with their own hardware or to a circuit they construct on the provided prototyping area.
The FMC (FPGA Mezzanine Card) Carrier Card provides flexibility to the MicroZed by allowing it to be used with any Low-Pin Count (LPC) FMC expansion boards, including boards from Avnet. Developed by a consortium of companies ranging from FPGA vendors to end users, FMC is a VITA 57 standard that provides a number of off-the-shelf, application-specific modules to speed experimentation and prototyping, including motor control, digital video, software-defined radio, high-speed data acquisition and others.
“Design teams looking for a fast prototyping solution can easily combine MicroZed with the FMC or Breakout carrier cards to build their system,” said Bryan Fletcher, technical marketing director at Avnet Electronics Marketing. “Simply put, MicroZed allows engineers to build highly customized solutions using application-specific carrier cards, without having to design everything from scratch. This can drastically shorten a product’s design cycle and cut cost over the long run.”
The FMC Carrier Card kit includes:
• Avnet FMC Carrier Card
• 12V @ 60 Watt AC/DC power supply
• MicroZed mounting hardware
• Quick start instructions
The Breakout Carrier Card kit includes:
• Avnet Breakout Carrier Card
• 5V @ 10 Watt AC/DC power supply
• MicroZed mounting hardware
• Quick start instructions
MicroZed is a low-cost development board based on the Xilinx® Zynq®-7000 All Programmable SoC. Its unique design allows it to be used as a stand-alone evaluation board for basic SoC experimentation or combined with a carrier card as an embeddable SOM for target applications. MicroZed contains two mezzanine connectors that allow a carrier card to power the SOM and expose PL I/Os on the Xilinx Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC. While plugged into a carrier card, the I/O is accessible in a manner defined by the carrier card design. Avnet has developed the MicroZed Carrier Design Guide to assist engineers developing custom carrier card solutions.
Order entry is open for the FMC and Breakout carrier cards at a cost of $149 and $59, respectively. Shipping will begin in March. Further information on the MicroZed and compatible carrier cards can be found at www.microzed.org.