Introduction
The XEM7010 is a compact, mezzanine-style FPGA integration module featuring the Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA and High Speed USB 2.0 connectivity via a USB 2.0 Type B connector.
Designed as a full-featured integration system, the XEM7010 provides access to over 120 I/O pins on its 484-pin Artix-7 device and has 512-MiByte DDR3 SDRAM available to the FPGA. Two SPI Flash devices provide a total of 32 MiB of non-volatile memory, one attached to the USB microcontroller and one attached to the FPGA.
Available with A50T and A200T FPGA densities, the XEM7010 is designed for high-performance system integrations.
Documentation and Reference Materials
The following is a comprehensive list of documentation available for this device.
| XEM7010 User’s Manual | This online documentation space. |
| XEM7010 Pins Reference | The interactive Pins reference for the device provides detailed pinout information as well as automated constraint file generation. Export functionality is provided to PDF, CSV. Constraint files are provided for UCF, XCD (Xilinx) and QSF, SDF (Altera). |
| FrontPanel SDK User’s Manual | The online documentation space for the FrontPanel SDK. |
| FrontPanel API Reference | Online API reference with detailed usage for every API method. |
Functional Block Diagram
FPGA
The XEM7010 is offered in two variants. These variants are identical except for the FPGA provided. The table below lists some of the differences between the two devices. Please consult the Xilinx documentation for a more thorough comparison.
| FEATURE | XEM7010-A50T | XEM7010-A200T |
|---|---|---|
| FPGA | XC7A50T-1FGG484 | XC7A200T-1FBG484 |
| Slice Count | 8,150 | 33,650 |
| D Flip-Flops | 65,200 | 269,200 |
| Distributed RAM | 600 Kib | 2,888 Kib |
| Block RAM | 2,700 Kib | 13,140 Kib |
| DSP Slices | 120 | 740 |
| Clock Management Tiles | 5 | 10 |
High Speed USB 2.0 Interface
The XEM7010 uses a Cypress FX2 USB microcontroller to make the XEM a USB 2.0 peripheral. As a USB peripheral, the XEM is instantly recognized as a plug and play peripheral on millions of PCs. More importantly, FPGA downloads to the XEM happen quickly, virtual instruments under FrontPanel update quickly, and data transfers are blazingly fast.
On-board Peripherals
The XEM7010 is designed to compactly support a large number of applications with a small number of on-board peripherals. These peripherals are listed below.
Low-Jitter Crystal Oscillator
A fixed-frequency, 200 MHz, low-jitter oscillator is included on-board and outputs LVDS to the FPGA. The Artix-7 FPGA can produce a wide range of clock frequencies using the on-chip DCM and PLL capabilities.
512-MiByte DDR3 Synchronous DRAM
The module also includes 512-MiByte DDR3 SDRAM with a 16-bit wide interface to the FPGA. This SDRAM is attached exclusively to the FPGA and does not share any pins with the expansion connector. The maximum clock rate of the SDRAM is 400 MHz. With the -1 speed grade of the Artix-7, the maximum clock rate is 400 MHz for a supported peak memory bandwidth of 12.8 Gib/s.
The DDR3 SDRAM is a Micron MT41K256M16TW (or compatible).
FPGA Flash – 4 MiB Serial Flash Memory
A 32 Mib serial flash device (Numonyx M25P32-VME6G or equivalent) provides on-board non-volatile storage for the FPGA. This device is attached directly to the FPGA for use in your design.
LEDs
Eight LEDs are available for general use as indicators.
FrontPanel Support
The XEM7010 is fully supported by Opal Kelly’s FrontPanel Application. FrontPanel augments the limited peripheral support with a host of PC-based virtual instruments such as LEDs, hex displays, pushbuttons, toggle buttons, and so on. Essentially, this makes your PC a reconfigurable I/O board and adds tremendous value to the XEM7010 as an experimentation or prototyping system.
Programmer’s Interface
In addition to complete support within FrontPanel, the XEM7010 is also fully supported by the FrontPanel SDK, a powerful C++ class library available to Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux programmers allowing you to easily interface your own software to the XEM.
In addition to the C++ library, wrappers have been written for C#, Java, and Python making the API available under those languages as well. Sample wrappers (unsupported) are also provided for Matlab and LabVIEW.
Complete documentation and several sample programs are installed with FrontPanel.
Copyright
Software, documentation, samples, and related materials are Copyright © 2006-2021 Opal Kelly Incorporated.
Opal Kelly Incorporated
Portland, OR
https://www.opalkelly.com
All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication, in whole or part, of this document by any means except for brief excerpts in published reviews is prohibited without the express written permission of Opal Kelly Incorporated.
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