Icepi Zero – The FPGA Raspberry Pi Zero Equivalent Is Now on Crowd Supply

Icepi Zero is an elegant and compact FPGA development board with a Raspberry Pi Zero form factor. It carries a powerful Lattice ECP5 FPGA, enabling advanced designs while keeping a small, portable size. It also has multiple USB Type-C ports as well as a GPDI mini display-out, allowing easy digital video output. Its compact, familiar design is ready for integration into existing projects and enclosures, and it is a great way to get into FPGA gateware experimentation.

Emulate, Learn, Accelerate

The ECP5 is an FPGA capable of emulating many systems, from the Apple I to custom RISC-V cores. You can use it to make cycle-accurate replicas of your favorite systems.

Since Icepi uses the Raspberry Pi Zero form factor, you can take or install your favorite retro computing platform anywhere. It’s so light you might forget it’s there, and its plentiful ports make it simple to use, even without carrying a bunch of adapters and dongles.

Additionally, Icepi is the perfect FPGA device for students and hobbyists. It is small with no external hardware. needed for programming. It is fully supported by Icestudio (currently hosted in this fork), making it easy to use for beginners.

Since the Icepi Zero has the same pinout and footprint as a Raspberry Pi Zero, it can not only serve as a standalone FPGA development board but also as a co-processor HAT for a Pi Zero. It can help the Pi Zero perform parallel computation tasks like machine learning acceleration or video processing. Its Pi-style GPIO header opens up a world of accessories that can be addressed directly by the Icepi’s FPGA.

Features & Specifications

• Lattice ECP5U FPGA:
  • 24k LUT
  • 112 KiB of RAM
  • 28 18 x 18 Multipliers
  • Open Source programming toolchain
• 256 Mbit (32 MB) of 166 MHz SDRAM
• 128 Mbit (16 MB) of QSPI Flash
• 50 MHz high precision MEMS oscillator

I/O interfaces

• 1x MiniGPDI connector
• 3x USB Type-C Ports
• 1x microSD card slot
• 28 GPIO pins
• On-board USB to JTAG and UART converter

Buttons and Indicators

• 5 user LEDs
• 2 user buttons

Size

• Compact footprint
• 65 x 30 mm (2.56 x 1.18 in)
• Raspberry Pi Zero form factor, compatible with some accessories

Open Source

Icepi Zero is a fully open-source project. All the design files, example programs, and everything related to the project are available on the following Github repository: https://github.com/cheyao/icepi-zero. It is already Open Source Hardware Association certified under registry number FR000026.

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