Chameleon96: the first FPGA-enabled and ARMv7 96Boards entry

By on April 1, 2017
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Linaro’s open source 96Boards spec was adopted by Arrow for the Chameleon96, the first ARMv7 96Boards entry, and the first FPGA-enabled 96Boards SBC.

The SBC runs Debian Linux on a Cyclone V SE SoC from Intel PSG (Programmable Solutions Group), the new post-acquisition name for Intel’s Altera FPGA unit.
The Cyclone V combines dual 800MHz Cortex-A9 cores with a modest FPGA subsystem with 110K LE performance. Among other duties, the FPGA handles the video subsystem, which decodes and encodes 60fps 1080p streams via HDMI and MIPI-CSI interfaces, respectively. By applying FPGA to video, the board enables development of custom IPU/GPU/VPU solutions.

The Chameleon96, which like other 96Boards CE SBCs expresses most of its interfaces via 40-pin low- and 60-pin high-speed expansion connectors, is also notable for its integration of SecureRF’s quantum resistant cryptography technology. SecureRF’s Ironwood Key Agreement Protocol and Walnut DSA Digital Signature Algorithm are designed for securing reduced footprint, low-energy IoT devices.
The board can be made compatible with Arduino using an add-on mezzanine board, one of a growing list of 96Boards mezzanines that are now available.

Chameleon96 Board Features Overview:
• FPGA
o Intel PSG Cyclone® V SE 5CSEBA6U19I7N device
o Integrated USB-Blaster™ II JTAG cable
o Configuration sources: SD Card, JTAG
o HDMI display output
o WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n + Bluetooth 4.1 module interface
• Hard Processor System
o 800 MHz dual-core ARM® Cortex®-A9 processor
o 512MB DDR3 SDRAM (16 bit data bus)
o USB Interface
o Micro SD card interface
o Serial UART
o User LEDs
o Warm reset button
• 96Boards Standard Expansion Connectors
o Low speed expansion connector (20×2) with UART, SPI, I2C, I2S, GPIO connectivity
o High speed expansion connector (30×2) with USB 2.0 Host, SPI, I2C, GPIO, and MIPI CSI-2 connectivity

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