RocketFPGA 🔉🚀

Why buy a iCE40UP5k breakout when it is possible to make one?

What is this?

This aims to be another FPGA breakout board. What makes this board special is the usage of a cheap CH551 microcontroller as the bridge between the USB and flash memory. This microcontroller could also be used to interface the FPGA and the USB, opening a lot of new possibilities.

The current hardware development is focushed on adding an audio codec and a couple of audio jack to set the focus this board in sound synthesis with FPGAs 😈.

Repo structure:

• Hardware: Contains the Altium PCB design files. (At some point we will clone this on kicad)
• Software
  • CH551 Bootloader: Contains the source files of the CH551 flash writer.
  • Code uploader: Contains a python script that uploads the synthesized FPGA code to the board.
  • FPGA Sample code: Contains a bunch of verilog examples.

TODO:

• Improve heavily the documentation (instructions, wiki etc)
• Finish the board with the audio codec
• Create audio related verilog code (once the board is finished)
• Rethink the TODOs