Ease-of-use is one of the key design concepts behind UltraMiner. Our obsession with intuitive operation led us to implement a single USB interface that provides access to all on-board components and supports FPGA operation and development, including functions – like FPGA bitstream programming and PMIC monitoring and control – that typically require the use of a JTAG programmer. We will be providing an open-source, cross-platform library that allows you to integrate this functionality into your own software.

Operations you can perform over USB include:

• Programming FPGA bitstream files
• Remote control and core status monitoring of the FPGA
• Monitoring the realtime power status
• Dynamic output voltage control

Dynamic Clock Frequency and Voltage Control

Let’s take a look at how our host software dynamically updates the clock frequency of the hashing core in a cryptocurrency algorithm, as well as the FPGA core voltage level, to achieve performance gains and to improve power efficiency.

In our mining host software, you can update the hash core clock frequency using the keystrokes:

• + Increase the hash core frequency by 50 Mhz
• - Decrease the hash core frequency by 50 Mhz

This is possible because our FPGA design includes a soft Microblaze CPU implementation that is capable of reconfiguring the clock generator (PLL) when a frequency change request is received via USB from the host software.

The host software is also capable of communicating with the PMIC to perform the following tasks:

• P Display the latest power status (voltage, current load, and temperature)
• [ Increase the FPGA core voltage by 0.01 V
• ] Decrease the FPGA core voltage by 0.01 v