µLab Kiwi and Kiwi Lite are compact, powerful, smart solutions for learning about and developing FPGAs. Both boards are plug and play and feature everything you need to get started with your first project including tutorials and software.

FPGA development can be challenging for beginners, in large part because it’s quite different than microcontroller development. Our Kiwi board provides a clever solution. It integrates an ESP32-S2-WROVER (ESP32), which is now commonly used amongst hobbyists, and is programmable through the well-known Arduino IDE. This provides the unique ability to develop your projects with the familiar ESP32, then move on to the FPGA for the more complicated tasks. For example, creating a logic analyzer on an FPGA alone can be quite hard. The ESP32 makes it much easier to process the data and display it.

The Kiwi boards are designed to help students, hobbyists, makers and professionals develop projects easily, with powerful tools that we believe every hardware developer needs on their desk.

uLab Kiwi

uLab Kiwi Lite

Harness the Power of a User-Friendly FPGA

The µLab Kiwi and Kiwi Lite fit a wide range of use-cases. From making an LED blink, to creating a wifi-enabled logic analyzer, a VGA driver, a CPU and more. We have intentionally included of all of the features needed to create complex projects. We also provide tutorials and project samples, which makes it easy to create any project you’d like.

The integration of the ESP32 on the Kiwi makes it possible to program parts of your project using the Arduino IDE (on the ESP32), and the other part on the FPGA. This handy feature is impossible on other FPGA development boards, since you’re limited to programming your entire project on the FPGA, even if it makes more sense to program it on a microcontroller.

For those who don’t want or need the ESP32 feature, and want more I/Os on the board, we are providing a lower cost, equally powerful board with the Kiwi Lite.

Kiwi Lite features more I/Os and is compatible with a wide range of PMOD shields. This makes it easy to interface with sensors, and provides a plug and play solution for testing them.

µLab Kiwi

The µLab Kiwi features everything you need to get started with your first FPGA project!

Kiwi Features & Specifications

• Altera MAX 10 FPGA with 8K LEs (10M08SCU169C8G)
• ESP32-S2-WROVER (Compatible with Arduino IDE)
• Onboard USB Blaster (JTAG Programmer)
• USB-UART Bridge for the ESP32-S2 (CP2104)
• 50 MHz Clock Oscillator
• 8x LEDs
• 4x Slide Switches
• 3x 7 Segment Displays
• 2x Buttons
• 1x 40 pin FPGA GPIO Header (Compatible with Terasic shields)
• 1x 40 pin ESP32 GPIO Header
• 4x GPIO (Between the FPGA and the ESP32) for internal communication (SPI / I2C / UART)
• USB Type-C Connector

All of these features are packed into a small but powerful 8x5 cm development board, designed to fit a wide range of projects.

µLab Kiwi Lite

The µLab Kiwi Lite is similar to the Kiwi, and just as useful, without the ESP32 and other peripherals. It features the same FPGA and USB Blaster, and is easy to use with the provided software and tutorials.

Kiwi Lite Features & Specifications

• Altera MAX 10 FPGA with 8K LEs (10M08SCU169C8G)
• Onboard USB Blaster (JTAG Programmer)
• 50 MHz Clock Oscillator
• 8x LEDs
• 2x Buttons
• 1x 40 pin FPGA GPIO Header (Compatible with Terasic shields)
• 3x 12 pin PMOD connectors
• Type-C USB Connector

Open Source Software

A huge problem we encountered when first learning about FPGAs was the lack of information and tutorials on the subject. To counteract that, we will provide detailed tutorials and open source code for anyone to use, along with the Kiwi boards.

No more struggling to define each GPIO pin, or any other other onboard peripherals. Our µLab Project Generator software defines all pins automatically, creates the project files, and provides a sample Verilog file, which makes it fast and simple to start programming.

Kiwi and Kiwi Lite Documentation

• µLab Project Generator
• Kiwi documentation and project samples
• Kiwi board legend

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