ΕΡΓΑΣΤΗΡΙΟ ΨΗΦΙΑΚΩΝ ΣΥΣΤΗΜΑΤΩΝ (2025-2026) (ΕCE333)

The Boolean board is an FPGA-based educational platform designed specifically for electrical and computer engineering education. Based on an AMD Spartan-7 FPGA, the Boolean board includes a large collection of peripheral devices and ports, allowing countless designs to be built without the need for any other components. The free Vivado CAD tool from AMD can be used for Verilog or VHDL entry, as well as for simulation, synthesis, and FPGA programming. A single USB connection provides power, a UART/COM port, and a programming port.

 Features

The Boolean board is a configurable digital logic system designed specifically for teaching and learning digital logic design.

The board is centered on a Xilinx Spartan-7 FPGA (XC7S50) that can be configured into a virtually unlimited number of hardware circuits.

The Spartan-7 FPGA includes:

• more than 8,000 FPGA slices, each containing four 6-input look-up tables and 8 flip-flops, equivalent to 52K logic cells;
• 120 DSP blocks, each with dual 24-bit adders, a 2’s compliment multiplier, and a 48-bit accumulator;
• 337Kbytes of high-speed, dual port RAM;
• Five clock management tiles that can generate a wide variety of clock signals from a single outside source;
• A 12-bit, 1MSPS analog-to-digital converter;
• And many other circuits and functions.

 AMD Spartan-7 Product Advantage

  AMD Spartan™ 7 devices, the newest addition to the Cost-Optimized Portfolio, offer exceptional performance per watt, along with small form factor packaging to meet the most stringent requirements. These devices feature a MicroBlaze™ soft processor running over 200 DMIPs with 800 Mb/s DDR3 support built on 28 nm technology. Additionally, Spartan 7 devices offer an integrated ADC, dedicated security features, and Q-grade (-40°C to +125°C) on all commercial devices. These devices are ideally suited for industrial, consumer, and automotive applications including any-to-any connectivity, sensor fusion, and embedded vision.

 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
• 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

Boolean Board Useful Links

Boolean Board Reference Manual

Boolean Board Schematic

Boolean Board Constraints File

Spartan 7 Data Sheet

 Overview (QuickTake video)

   Vivado Design Suite is a software suite produced by Xilinx for synthesis and analysis of HDL designs, supersending Xilinx ISE with additional features for System on-a Chip (SoC) develpoment and High-Level Synthesis (HLS). It is an Integrated Design Enviroment (IDE) with system-to-IC level tools built on a shared scalable data model and a common debug enviroment. Vivado includes Electronic System Level (ESL) design tools for synthesising and verifying C-based algorithmic IP, standards based packaging of both algorithmoc and RTL IP for reuse; standard based IP stitching and systems integration of all types of system building blocks; and the verification of blocks and system

 High-Level Design

   Vivado IP Integrator provides a graphical and Tcl-based, correct-by construction design development flow. Working at the interface level, design teams can rapidly assemble complex systems that leverage IP created with Vitis™  HLS, Vitis Model Composer, Xilinx IP, Alliance Member IP as well as your own IP. By leveraging the combination of newly improved Vivado IPI and HLS, customers are saving up to 15X in development costs versus an RTL approach.

 Verification

  Meeting the verification challenges of today’s complex devices requires multitudes of tools and technologies at various levels of design. Vivado® Suite delivers these tools and technologies in a cohesive environment for accelerated verification of block- and chip-level designs.

 Implementation

  The Vivado ML design suite with advanced machine learning algorithms delivers the best implementation tools with significant advantages in runtime and performance. With best-in-class compilation tools for synthesis, place, route, and physical optimization, and Xilinx-compiled methodology recommendations, designers can accelerate the implementation phase of their design cycle.

   A free version WebPACK/ML Standard Edition of Vivado provides designers with a limited version of the design enviroment.

   The Xilinx University Program (XUP) enables the use of Xilinx FPGA and Zynq SoC tools and technologies for academic teaching and research.

   Benifits for Students:

  Xilinx designs and develops programmable logic products, including integrated circuits (ICs), software design tools, predefined system functions delivered as intellectual property (IP) cores, design services, customer training, field engineering and technical support.

  Digilent specializes primarily in Xilinx-based FPGA/SoC development boards/kits and portable USB test and measurement devices, all designed to be owned by and used from an engineer's or student's desk. We also offer a variety of expansion modules (Pmods and Zmods) to create flexible I/O options for our other products.

  Intel delivers a broad portofolio of custom logic solutiocs - FPGAs, SoCs, structured ASICs, and CPLDs - together with software tools, intellectual property (IP), embedded processors, customer support, and technical training.

  Microchip Technology offers 8-bit microcontrollers, 16-bit PIC microcontrollers, dsPIC digital signal controllers, 3analog and interface products, security authentication products, timing/communication/real-time clock and calendar products, real-time clock and calendar devices, memory products, wireless products, high-throughput USB and Ethernet interfaces, MOST technology, embedded controllers and super I/O devices, touch, multi-touch and 3D gesture control products, power over Ethernet systems and ICs, and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).

  Lattice Semiconductor manufactures field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), programmable mixed-signal and interconnect products, related software and intellectual property (IP).

  OuickLogic is a fabless semiconductor company that develops low power, multi-core MCU, FPGAs and embedded FPGA Intellectual Property (IP), voice and sensor processing.

  Achronix is a fabless semiconductor corporation offering high-performance FPGA solutions. Achronix have both high-performance and high-density standalone FPGAs and embedded FPGA (eFPGA) solutions in high-volume production. Achronix's FPGA and eFPGA IP offerings are further enhanced by ready-to-use PCIe accelerator cards targeting AI, ML, networking and data center applications.

  GOWIN Semiconductor include a broad portfolio of programmable logic devices, design software, intellectual property (IP) cores, reference designs, and development kits.

  Findchips offers a single place to view up to date pricing and inventory from the world's largest distributors.  

  Alldatasheet provides semiconductors and electronic component's datasheets for free.