The consumers’ increasing preference for smart, power-saving, and efficient household equipment as well as the rapid deployment of smart devices are pushing board manufacturers to deliver devices with advanced semiconductor functionalities. Artix 7 evaluation board functions as a prototyping or testing printed circuit board for the electrical device that connects integrated circuits and other electronic devices.
It might interest you to know that the demand for evaluation boards a is on steady increase owing to the growing adoption of new gadgets and also increasing demand for upgraded devices by consumers. Therefore, PCBA manufacturers, IoT and sensor producers, and OEMs are all demanding for evaluation boards to test devices thereby contributing to the growth the of evaluation board market.
Do you know that over 7,500 users around the globe build with Xilinx FPGAs because of the company’s strength in building cost-effective designs? Xilinx is one of the top ten semiconductor giants that introduced Artix 7 FGPA in the middle of 2012. Ever since designers in various fields and high-end applications have been enjoying its numerous advantages.
This review article seeks to give you detailed information and in-depth insight about the Artix 7 evaluation board and how it can be of great benefit to you.
Key Features and Advantages
The Xilinx Artix 7 is a plus because it offers the best performance field-programmable gate array for signal processing, AMS integration, logic, transceiver line rate, and many more.
The Artix 7 appeals to customers because of the following key features:
- It offers better system performance by providing 5.7 times more DSP processing, 13MB BRAM, DDR3 memory of 1,066Mb/s, 930 GMACs of signal processing, 1.2GBs LVDS, SODDIMs support, and 16 X 6.6G GTs.
- Also, it maintains an enhanced system performance per watt with a cheaper wireless backhaul.
- It supports programmable system integration. This support comes in both analog mixed-signal integration and AXI IP. The sub-watt is higher, ranging from 13k to 215k logic cells.
- The Artix 7 evaluation board helps to reduce BOM costs by helping with chip-scale bond packaging and saving on analog components with the use of a small wire bonding package.
- It supports an integrated memory interface which helps power-sensitive applications and ease of access.
- Also, the Xilinx FPGA helps to achieve total power reduction. It offers the lowest power speed grade (around -1L) and 50 percent complete power reduction.
- It allows for accelerated design productivity by supporting easy architecture scaling for prospective designs and supporting scalable and comprehensive IP tools.
- The Artix-7 contains a MicroBlaze CPU which is highly programmable with a 32-bit RISC processor. More so, this processor supports presets and rapid deployment for microcontrollers and real-time processors.
- It provides a highly proven 28nm process, enhanced speed grades, excellent architecture, and quality.
- It supports reference designs and development kits with IP for fast design, beginning with detailed tools.
Applications of Artix 7 Evaluation Board
The Artix 7 has a small form factor that supports system flexibility and compact packaging. It can be applied in various areas such as 64-channel portable ultrasound, programmable logic controller (PLC), battery-powered software-based radio, multi-protocol vision machine camera, and wireless backhaul – point-to-point 1024 QAM microwave modem.
Factors to Consider When Choosing Artix 7
One of the key decisions a design team makes is choosing the right FPGA package for their project. However, problems arise when the project requires you to strike a balance between quality and features as well as optimization. Opting for Artix 7 FPGA is good especially if you consider the following factors and how they will affect your choice in the long run.
- Device Migration
This is an important factor when selecting an evaluation board. What this means is that if you choose any FPGA with a particular package, you might have the option to either upgrade to a higher-end or downgrade to a lower-end FPGA in the same box. This factor supports better system performance for cost-optimized applications.
Take a look at the Xilinx Artix 7 FPGA family, for instance, if you select XC7A50T in the FGG484 package, you have about five more Artix 7 devices having the same compatible characteristics. So, this allows you to either upgrade or downgrade while keeping your hardware design. This factor offers flexibility and mobility in cost and optimal use of the Artix 7 evaluation board.
- Power Consumption
Another critical factor to consider in your choice of FPGA is power consumption. This is one of the main reasons Xilinx rolled out Artix 7 into the market. Nowadays, the newer models use either 14nm or 28nm to take care of power requirements for each logic cell thereby reducing power consumption.
- FPGA Resources
Consumers can choose if their project requires more DSP slices or many I/Os based on the project type in question. The significant Artix 7 resources you can choose from include: multi-gigabit transceivers (MGT), memory resources (block RAM, distributed RAM, and others), clock resources (MMCM, PLL, and others), DSP slices, and hard blocks (ARM cores, PCle, and more).
- Cost
Another reason to consider Artix-7 is its cost-effectiveness. Cost is important because it affects the design budget. Apart from this, any additional feature on the FPGA attracts its cost. However, Xilinx factors in production cost and still delivers a wonderful product at an affordable price.
- Interface
All FPGAs in the market communicate through the transceivers or general Input/Outputs. It means if the design requires a display port or PCI express for communication, the best option is to go for an Artix 7 which has MGT transceivers. On the other hand, if the design requires HDMI Input/Output, look for an FPGA that supports TMDS signaling.
Why Use Artix 7 Evaluation Board?
Designers prefer Xilinx Artix 7 over other FPGAs because of its versatility. However, more advanced applications allow the complementary use of Artix 7 with other FPGAs. The following reasons show why design teams choose Artix 7.
- Hardware Prototyping
It is important to repeat design with diverse hardware components in both electrical and electronic design. Using Artix 7 makes it easier to test different components on the hardware without tampering with the physical structure of the board components.
- Non-Recurring Designing Cost
There are already-made Artix 7 evaluation boards in the market. Therefore, designers can choose to burn their hardware description language (HDL) code onto the board and move on thereby keeping the engineering cost at bay.
Conclusion
The field-programmable gate array market is expected to reach about USD 7 million by the end of 2022. The market outlook shows a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.4 percent which will yield an increase of USD 12 million in 2028. This projection is a win-win situation for Xilinx FPGA as the biggest and most well-known FPGA manufacturer in the world with about 36 percent revenue share in 2018.
Maybe, you are still on the fence trying to weigh the pros and cons of building with the Xilinx Artix 7 evaluation board. The truth is that Artix 7 has met the requirements and expectations of various design teams and individuals across different fields. Simple research from Amazon will show you many customer experiences of how beneficial Artix 7 has been to them.
These product reviews from customers around the globe give credibility to the effectiveness of Artix 7. So, if you are a design team or an independent designer of high-end applications, you wouldn’t want to miss the benefits of building with the Artix 7 evaluation board, would you?
