Silica Xynergy Board - STM32 meets Spartan-6

The Xynergy Board from SILICA combines an ARM Cortex-M3 based STMicroelectronics STM32F217 controller with a Xilinx Spartan-6 low-cost FPGA (XC6SLX16) in one design.

There are numerous development tools for either ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers or FPGA kits, but this is the first module in the market that merges both technologies on one board, although it is absolutely common to have a microcontroller next to an FPGA, performing tasks that cannot be integrated in the FPGA in a cost-effective way.

High costs for the adequate IP cores and for the additionally needed resources in the FPGA very often require an implementation in favor of a two-chip solution. Particularly the use of standard communication interfaces like Ethernet, USB and CAN are in most cases cheaper and easier to implement on a microcontroller.

Xynergy Board Features

ST STM32F217 ARM Cortex-M3 MCU
Xilinx XC6SLX16 Spartan-6 low cost FPGA
ST ST802 10 / 100 Ethernet PHY
RJ45 Ethernet connector
Micron MT41J64M16 1-Gbit DDR3 SDRAM
Micron M25P128 SPI NOR-Flash
Micro-SD Card Slot
ST M24LR64 dual interface RFID EEPROM (assembly option)
USB on-the-go connector
Standard JTAG connector for ARM debugging
Connector for standard Xilinx Platform Cable USB II
2x 64-pin expansion ports

Xynergy Board Target Applications

Evaluation of mixed microcontroller / FPGA designs
General purpose industrial applications using Ethernet / USB / CAN / SPI / I²C
General purpose pre-, post- and coprocessing with FPGA, i.e. digital filtering , advanced crypto, video etc.
Implementation of industrial Ethernet IP in FPGA
Motorcontrol with FPGA acceleration of closed loop algorithms
Access to DDR3 memory
Custom interfaces