Microsemi and its board manufacturing partner Pactron have gone to Crowd Supply to launch an FPGA add-on board for SiFive’s RISC-V based HiFive Unleashed SBC. The open-spec HiFive Unleashed Expansion Board adds PCIe root port capability to SiFive’s Linux-driven SBC, letting developers add PCIe cards for graphics, storage, audio, network, keyboard/mouse, and more. USB ports provide further expansion for the USB-deprived HiFive Unleashed, which runs Linux on a RISC-V based Freedom U540 SoC.
The board is driven by its PolarFire FPGA. Microsemi has selected an upper mid-range PolarFire MPF300T part with 300K Logic Elements (LEs), as well as a soft IP block that includes RISC-V support. The FPGA is provided in an FCG1152 package.
The board comes pre-programmed with a chiplink to PCIe Root Port bridge enabling easy connectivity to PCIe add in cards. The board also has additional expansion capabilities for bit streams yet to come.
- 300K logic element, low power PolarFire FPGA
- 24 lane PCIe Switch
- x1 PCI Express card connector
- x16 PCI Express card connector with four lanes of PCIe gen2 connected
- SSD M.2 connector
- SATA connector
- HDMI connector
- eMMC Nand Flash
- uSD card slot
- USB to Uart bridges
- 4 Gbit DDR4 x16
- SPI Flash for remote FPGA updates, QSPI Flash connected to GPIO
- Two CAN transceivers
- FMC connection to HFU540-4A00 kit
The PCIe support makes it easier to build a fully configured RISC-V PC.
Please, refer to the Crowd Supply page for purchase.
