The TinyFPGA EX is smaller than a stick of gum but it incorporates the powerful Lattice ECP5 FPGA providing everything needed to drive a custom embedded system of your own design. In addition to the incredible ECP5 FPGA and support components, the EX includes 64 MBit of onboard HyperRAM, 128 MBit of high speed SPI flash, and a microSD card slot. Both the SPI flash and HyperRAM support high speed data transfers: up to 80 MB/s on the SPI flash and up to 333 MB/s on the HyperRAM.

Three Variants to Choose From

Features in all Variants

• Powerful Lattice ECP5 FPGA
  • 49 dedicated and seven shared IO pins
• Small, breadboard-friendly form factor
  • 0.7 by 2.4 inches
  • Standard 0.1 inch (2.54 mm) spacing for most pinouts
• Built-in USB interface with open source USB bootloader
  • Switch between bootloader and user design using the onboard button or from within your FPGA design
  • User LED pulses on and off to indicate bootloader is active
• JTAG connector for power users
• 128 MBit of SPI Flash with 120 MBit available for user data
  • Supports common SPI transfer modes
  • Supports quad SPI with double data rate transfer at up to 80 MHz for a maximum transfer rate of 80 MB/s.
• 64 MBit of HyperRAM
  • 12 pin interface supports up to 333 MB/s transfer rates.
• Fully connected microSD card slot
• Integrated voltage regulators
  • High efficiency 3.3 V, 1 amp switching power supply for GPIO and SPI flash
  • High efficiency 1.1/1.2 V, 4 amp switching power supply for FPGA core power
  • Low dropout 2.5 V linear voltage regulator for FPGA aux power
  • Low dropout 1.8 V linear voltage regulator for HyperRAM
• Ultra Low-Power 48 MHz MEMs Oscillator
  • 1.3 mA active power
  • 50 ppm stability
• USB Type-C connector
  • Four through-hole connections for structural integrity
  • Provides power and USB data connections

Open Source All the Way!

The TinyFPGA EX design files will be released on GitHub under an open source hardware license. The TinyFPGA bootloader used to provide USB support is open source. Finally, the SymbiFlow toolchain supports the ECP5 FPGAs used in the EX with NextPNR and Project Trellis. For higher level design needs, Migen and LiteX support is coming.

TinyFPGA is committed to open source hardware and software and the EX is no exception!

Current Status

Prototype hardware is up and running! The pictured board is functional and operating with the bootloader. There is more work to do for the 5G variant and to bring-up the HyperRAM.

Next Steps

The TinyFPGA EX is the next step up from the BX and is a very exciting project. Current plans are to launch the campaign this fall. Sign up now to be the first to know when pre-orders are open!