ΕΡΓΑΣΤΗΡΙΟ ΨΗΦΙΑΚΩΝ ΣΥΣΤΗΜΑΤΩΝ (2025-2026) (ΕCE333)

   The Nexys A7 board is a complete, ready-to-use digital circuit development platform based on the latest Artix-7™ Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) from Xilinx®. With its large, high-capacity FPGA, generous external memories, and collection of USB, Ethernet, and other ports, the Nexys A7 can host designs ranging from introductory combinational circuits to powerful embedded processors. Several built-in peripherals, including an accelerometer, temperature sensor, MEMs digital microphone, a speaker amplifier, and several I/O devices allow the Nexys A7 to be used for a wide range of designs without needing any other components.

 Features

   Artix-7 FPGA

   The Nexys A7 can be purchased with either a XC7A100T or XC7A50T FPGA loaded. These two Nexys A7 product variants are referred to as the Nexys A7-100T and Nexys A7-50T, respectively. When Digilent documentation describes functionality that is common to both of these variants, they are referred to collectively as the “Nexys A7”. When describing something that is only common to a specific variant, the variant will be explicitly called out by its name.

   The only difference between the Nexys A7-100T and Nexys A7-50T is the size of the Artix-7 part. The Artix-7 FPGAs both have the same capabilities, but the XC7100T has about a 2 times larger internal FPGA than the XC750T. The differences between the two variants are summarized below:

   The Nexys A7 is the new name for our popular Nexys 4 DDR board, now available in two FPGA densities! Featuring the same Artix™-7 field programmable gate array (FPGA) from Xilinx®, the Nexys A7 is a ready-to-use digital circuit development platform designed to bring additional industry applications into the classroom environment. The Artix-7 FPGA is optimized for high-performance logic, and offers more capacity, higher performance, and more resources than earlier designs. With its large, high-capacity FPGA and collection of USB, Ethernet, and other ports, the Nexys A7 can host designs ranging from introductory combinational circuits to powerful embedded processors. Several built-in peripherals, including an accelerometer, a temperature sensor, MEMs digital microphone, speaker amplifier, and plenty of I/O devices allow the Nexys A7 to be used for a wide range of designs without needing any other components. The Nexys A7 is compatible with Xilinx's new high-performance Vivado® Design Suite as well as the ISE® toolset, which includes ChipScope™ and EDK. Xilinx offers free WebPACK™ versions of these tool sets, so designs can be implemented at no additional cost.

 Artix-7 Product Advantage

   Artix®-7 devices provide the highest performance-per-watt fabric, transceiver line rates, DSP processing, and AMS integration in a cost-optimized FPGA. Featuring the MicroBlaze™ soft processor and 1,066Mb/s DDR3 support, the family is the best value for a variety of cost and power-sensitive applications including software-defined radio, machine vision cameras, and low-end wireless backhaul.

 Applications

• 64-Channel Portable Ultrasound
• Wireless Backhaul: Point-to-Point 1024QAM Microwave Modem
• Multi-Protocol Machine Vision Camera
• Programmable Logic Controller
• Battery Powered Software Defined Radio

 References

• DS180, 7 Series FPGAs Overview
• DS181, Artix-7 FPGAs Data Sheet: DC and AC Switching Characteristics
• UG470, 7 Series FPGAs Configuration User Guide
• UG471, 7 Series FPGAs SelectIO Resources User Guide
• UG472, 7 Series FPGAs Clocking Resources User Guide
• UG473, 7 Series FPGAs Memory Resources User Guide
• UG474, 7 Series FPGAs Configurable Logic Block User Guide
• UG475, 7 Series FPGAs Packaging and Pinout User Guide
• UG476, 7 Series FPGAs GTX/GTH Transceivers User Guide
• UG479, 7 Series FPGAs DSP48E1 Slice User Guide
• UG480, 7 Series FPGAs and Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC XADC Dual 12-Bit 1 MSPS ADC User Guide
• UG482, 7 Series FPGAs GTP Transceivers User Guide
• UG483, 7 Series FPGAs PCB Design Guide

   Uploaded Reference Manuals on Course's e-Class.