A new choice for local entry-level FPGAs—Pangomicro PGL12G FPGA review (hardware)

Last time we learned about Xilinx's ZYNQ brought by Chuanglong Technology. This time, Jaya brought a development board suitable for beginners to get started with FPGA, and the Logos series FPGA development platform PGL12G brought by Heijin and Ziguang Tongchuang.

In the past, when FPGA is mentioned, the following companies may come to mind: Xilinx, Altera, and Lattice, which is less well-known. Xilinx is the industry leader in FPGA, and I won’t explain why. Altera should not be called Altera now, but Intel. You read it right, it is the big CPU manufacturer, Intel, which produces i5 and i7. Altera was acquired by Intel for $16.7 billion in 2015. Then there is Lattice. Lattice’s chips may not be as well-known as the first two big brothers, but Lattice’s FPGA has unique insights in interfaces, miniaturization, and other fields. It is precisely because of the unique insights that Lattice’s FPGA has applications in different fields that other manufacturers cannot replace.

OK, here comes our protagonist today, Shenzhen Ziguang Tongchuang Electronics Co., Ltd., which is a subsidiary of Ziguang Guowei, specializing in the research and development, production and sales of programmable logic devices (FPGA, CPLD, etc.). It is a leading domestic FPGA manufacturer in China and is committed to providing customers with complete programmable logic device platforms and system solutions with independent intellectual property rights. The development board brought today is the PGL12G development verification board designed for us by Heijin and Ziguang Tongchuang Group.

To be honest, I was a little nervous at the beginning. After all, I am not a professional, and I am only a layman in FPGA. I am not a professional FPGA developer. I am just a player, not a professional. Well, I calmed down. Although I am just a player, as a person who has played with ZYNQ, MAX10, CycloneV and other FPGA platforms, it is most appropriate for me to try it out for everyone and help Xiaobai test the waters.

OK, let's stop here. Let's follow the old rules and first understand our actors today. We still need to pull them out and take a look at their weight. Let's first have a macro understanding of the hardware. Let's start with the overall framework of the board:

As for the functions on the board, we can basically see that most of the functions are familiar to us. Generally, novices start with this module. Let's take a closer look at the resources of the board.

When we get a new FPGA development board, we are most curious about what kind of FPGA chip is used in this board, how many logic resources it has, and how high its performance is. Let's first understand the basic information of PGL12GF FPGA of Unigroup Tongchuang Electronics Co., Ltd. The chip picture is as follows:

The full part number of this FPGA is PGL12G6CFBG256, which belongs to the Logos series of products of Tsinghua Unigroup, with a speed grade of -6 and a temperature grade of commercial grade C. This model is FBG256 package with 256 pins. The naming rules of the Logos series FPGA are shown in the figure. The rules are as follows:

For an FPGA, what we are most concerned about may not be the package or the FPGA manufacturer, but the logic resources of an FPGA. The FPGA chip used on our PGL12G evaluation board is PGL12G, which has 9856 LUT5, 39424 bits of RAM, 30 18K DRAMs, and 4 PLLs. The detailed description is as follows:

The most basic part of a development board is the power supply. Let's take a look at the power supply scheme used by this development board. The power input voltage of the development board is +5V. There are three power supplies on the board, two of which use the DC/DC power chip MP1482 to convert the +5V voltage into +3.3V and +1.1V power. The +3.3V is used to power the BANK voltage of peripherals and FPGA, and the +1.1V is used to power the core of the FPGA. There is also a power supply of an LDO linear regulator, which converts the +5V voltage into a +2.5V power supply to provide a variable BANK voltage power supply. The schematic diagram is as follows:

The circuit part on the board is as shown below: The materials used for passive components are good, but compared with the power requirements of other big manufacturers, the domestic FPGA PGL12GFBG256 does not seem to have as high power requirements as the big guys, but this may be a good thing. Low power requirements indicate that the development and design cost of FPGA will be reduced, but this may not be a good thing. For voltage-sensitive parts, if the power supply has high requirements on transient response, ripple and other parameters, it will be a disaster if the power supply requirements are not high enough.

Next is the first code for beginners, GPIO operation. The functions of GPIO include 4 LEDs and 5 buttons, among which PROG is the reset button of FPGA. As shown below:

Since it is an FPGA, we definitely need a downloader. For the downloader, HeiJin provides us with a JTAG interface, as shown below. It also equips us with a SUB CABLE for debugging, which is connected through a 10-PIN header interface.

Connect the board and debugger USB CABLE. As shown in the picture below, the horn socket has a built-in anti-mock interface, so you don't have to worry about inserting it upside down. If you insert it upside down, you can't insert it without damaging the interface.

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