2012

Data acquisition and signal processing are ubiquitous across a range of applications, from consumer and industrial to automotive, aerospace, and beyond. A common trend across these wide-ranging applications is the ability for the signal processing system to support an increasing number of different sensor modalities with higher sampling rates and faster response times. This trend for a faster response time when working with larger quantities of diverse data places significant demands on the processing architecture.

Portland, Oregon – March 18, 2014 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB, announced the ZEM4310 Cyclone IV USB 3.0 FPGA Module, which leverages the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface for FPGA configuration download and communication. The ZEM4310, the company’s first Altera-based integration module, includes over 160 FPGA I/Os in a mezzanine format similar to other Opal Kelly products, but based on the HSMC standard connector and pinout. The Opal Kelly ZEM4310 utilizes the Altera Cyclone IV FPGA (EP4CE55F23C8N) as well as the Cypress FX3 USB controller for fast configuration downloads and up to 330 MB/s data transfer rates. The ZEM4310 is fully compatible with the company’s FrontPanel SDK and proprietary FX3 firmware, which provides a turnkey link between hardware and software. Furthermore, API compatibility exists across the entire line of Opal Kelly FPGA integration modules making the transition within the FrontPanel family comfortable and easy.

We’ve rolled a number of updates into this release. Here are some of the highlights.

FrontPanel 5.0.0 is now available on the Pins Downloads page. Remember that you need to be logged into Pins to see and access the FrontPanel SDK downloads.

Today we’re proud to announce the next phase of FrontPanel is entering public beta.

The ability to work with analogue signals is critical for many FPGA based systems, after all the world is analogue.

Clive (Max) Maxfield of Chip Design Magazine writes about the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) use of Opal Kelly XEM3050 modules in a cost-saving project to re-use old warehoused equipment in his Chips and Dips section.

William Wong of Electronic Design writes about the continuing improvement of FPGA design tools.

PORTLAND, OR – Opal Kelly announced today the availability of an industrial version of their popular XEM3010-1500P USB 2.0 FPGA module.

We’re very excited to introduce you to Pins our new interactive online reference for Opal Kelly integration module pinouts.

Portland, Oregon – December 9, 2016 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules and the FrontPanel SDK that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB or PCI Express, announced the FOMD-ACV-A4, the company’s first FPGA-on-Module for integration applications that do not require FrontPanel support. The FOMD-ACV-A4 is a small, thin, SODIMM-style module that fits a standard 204-pin SODIMM socket for low-cost integrations and includes on-board power supplies, flash memory, and DDR3 memory. Measuring only 67.6mm x 36mm x 3.7mm, the FOMD-ACV is designed to fit a standard DDR3 SODIMM socket. Only a single commodity DDR3 SODIMM socket is required on the carrier, eliminating the cost of mezzanine connectors on the module and reducing carrier cost. The compact module includes an Altera Cyclone V E FPGA and 512 MiB DDR3 memory, making the module suitable for many types of embedded systems applications, including data acquisition, image and video capture / processing, test equipment, and 3D printers.

Portland, Oregon – April 7, 2011 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using PCI Express or USB 2.0, today announced the XEM6010, a refresh of its flagship products XEM3010 and XEM3050. Based on the powerful new Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA, with high-speed USB 2.0 interface for downloading and communication, the new XEM6010-LX45 and XEM6010-LX150 offer a significant improvement in logic, memory, and speed, without increasing costs. The XEM6010 is ideally suited to prototyping systems and integration into OEM devices where a USB interface, flexible hardware solution, or PC software interface would be useful. The XEM6010 can easily be added to a new board design to provide turnkey USB integration with the convenience of the FrontPanel programmer’s interface and existing USB drivers. Available in two versions, the XEM6010-LX45 is based on the Xilinx XC6SLX45 and the XEM6010-LX150 is based on the Xilinx XC6SLX150. They both include high-speed USB 2.0 FPGA configuration and data transfer, with integrated DDR2 SDRAM, power supplies, and configuration flash. In addition, they leverage Opal Kelly’s powerful FrontPanel SDK and application.

Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) are the most flexible and capable devices available to interface to a large variety of system devices such as memories, data acquisition (ADC/DAC), image sensors, displays, and so on. Often, the goal is to interface these system devices to a software infrastructure running on a workstation platform using a Windows, Linux or Mac operating system. The ubiquitous PC, with its myriad of software development environments, comfortable presence, and low-cost, should be the ultimate microprocessor development platform but it has generally been ill-suited to the intimate hardware development scene. This is largely due to the layers of operating system between the application software and the device pins a developer wishes to “wiggle.” Development engineers in commercial design and academic research have found a way to bring these two worlds together fortuitously with USB-based FPGA modules, designed to bridge the gap between hardware and software worlds.

VHDL was introduced in 1981, followed by Verilog in 1984. Both were primarily introduced as a way to document and simulate the behavior of digital circuits. As the languages became standardized and more broadly adopted, tools became more affordable and capable, eventually leading to the use of these languages for circuit synthesis in the 1990’s and 2000’s. These Hardware Description Languages (HDLs) revolutionized the world of digital logic design, significantly reducing the time it takes to bring products to market over more traditional (at the time) schematic-based approaches. High-Level Synthesis (HLS) takes this a step further by allowing algorithmic descriptions that abstract away the cycle-by-cycle description of RTL, further reducing the time it takes to bring products to market. BittWare reported an impressive decrease in time to market, from one month using RTL to just one week using HLS, also noting some unexpected performance improvements from the HLS implementation.

Designing for industrial applications presents many challenges, but it also allows an engineer to be creative, spread her wings, and explore new technologies to solve the task at hand. Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and, in particular, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) FPGA modules can be just the ticket to attack industrial applications that used to be a much more difficult challenge. Development that previously required multiple hardware iterations, taking weeks or months to complete, can now be completed in days by leveraging the rapid prototyping capabilities of FPGAs. One interesting benefit, advocating the use of FPGAs, is that these unprecedented levels of integration allow designers to incorporate custom instrumentation directly into their project. This results in both improved observability and enhanced functionality of the system.

One shortcoming of graphical or schematic hardware descriptions is that ripping signals or subset busses from a larger bus can be cumbersome. AMD-Xilinx’s Slice IP Core can only slice off one signal/bus per instantiation of the IP Core and this quickly becomes unruly as the number of control signals increase. We recommend a custom RTL Slicer to contain all your bus slicing requirements in one module. We define a new naming convention for the sliced signals below. See Naming Convention Benefits for more information.

AMD-Xilinx’s 7-Series and UltraScale Memory Interface Generators (MIG) are complex gateware and primitive instantiation generators for DDR memory. They can be configured with seemingly endless parameters, and because it implements a physical interface outside the FPGA, your board vendor is the appropriate source for this configuration. It can be a grueling process to manually enter vendor provided configuration settings, and is prone to user error. Additionally, it can be tough for vendors to provide up-to-date configurations for their boards as variations in both Vivado and the MIG’s version can affect the generated output products of the MIG. With our recent support for Vivado Board Files, instantiating and using memory interfaces in your design just got a lot easier. We maintain MIG configuration parameters within our Board Files for all USB3 boards at AMD-Xilinx’s Board Store for separate Vivado versions v2021.1 and later. AMD-Xilinx’s Board Store repository, and in turn our Board Files, is seamlessly integrated into the Vivado GUI and allows access by the user with no additional step outside installation of the board file. Configuring your project to use our Board Files allows seamless access to our Vivado version’s specific MIG parameter configuration.

Portland, Oregon – July 23, 2019 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB 2.0 and 3.0, announced the XEM7310MT USB 3.0 FPGA Module, combining a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface and a Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA in compact module form factor. The XEM7310MT USB interface delivers transfer rates exceeding 340MB/s and includes one high-speed gigabit transceiver with two bidirectional lanes. Artix-7 transceivers also support other serial standards such as PCI Express, DisplayPort, SATA, HD-SDI, XAUI, Aurora, and others operating at up to 3.75 Gb/s. The XEM7310MT, measuring only 75mm x 60mm (2.95” x 2.36”), includes the FPGA, USB interface, 8 Gib DDR3, 32 MiB serial flash, 200 MHz low-jitter clock oscillator, and several switching power supplies to power the entire board from a single 5-volt external supply. The XEM7310MT fully supports Opal Kelly’s popular multi-platform FrontPanel SDK for FPGA configuration and host communication using a simple API in C/C++, C#, Python, Java, and Ruby programming languages.

Portland, Oregon – October 4, 2011 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using PCI Express or USB 2.0, today announced the Shuttle LX1 (XEM6006), the industry’s first low-cost, standards-based evaluation board platform with a rich evaluation environment. Based on the Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA and the FMC (Vita 57), Opal Kelly claims Shuttle LX1 as the world’s smallest FMC carrier at only 69mm x 50mm. As a third-party, standards-based platform, the Shuttle LX1 can save semiconductor companies months of engineering time and substantial production expense while significantly improving the customer experience and evaluation capability.

Portland, Oregon – September 27, 2011 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using PCI Express or USB 2.0, today announced two industrial-temperature versions of its recently-released XEM6010 module. Based on the powerful Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA, with high-speed USB 2.0 interface for downloading and communication, the new XEM6010-LX45I and XEM6010-LX150I are specified for the full industrial temperature range of -40ºC to +85ºC.

Portland, Oregon – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful USB-based FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect, today announced the “Logic Analyzer in a Day” Experts’ Challenge, using an Opal Kelly module and its integrated FrontPanel Software Developement Kit (SDK). This program is designed to showcase both the capabilities of the Opal Kelly experts and how quickly a significant project can be implemented using Opal Kelly modules and software. The results of the “Logic Analyzer in a Day” Challenge will be announced over the coming weeks and the code will be freely available on the Opal Kelly website.

Portland, Oregon – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA USB 2.0 modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect, today announced the Opal Kelly Experts Program. This program introduces Opal Kelly customers to qualified Opal Kelly expert consultants to augment in-house expertise and bandwidth for completing FPGA and FrontPanel-based development. The consultants in the Opal Kelly Expert Program have been selected for their expertise in HDL, FPGA, and software design. The program is designed to be a win-win, simply introducing customers to the expert consultants. Opal Kelly does not take a commission or any fee for connecting people.

Portland, Oregon – October 2, 2012 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB or PCI Express, announced the addition of the XEM6002 integration module. The XEM6002 includes four Digilent Pmod™ Compatible connectors for attaching low-bandwidth peripheral modules, making it ideally suited for semiconductor evaluation and experimentation, and leverages the robust functionality of Opal Kelly’s FrontPanel™ software and SDK that provide an easy-to-use software interface between hardware and PCs.

Portland, Oregon – June 10, 2010 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful USB-based FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect, today announced the first result of its “Logic Analyzer in a Day” Challenge. Opal Kelly Expert Rainer Malzbender designed, in less than 10 hours, a very capable graphical logic analyzer using the Opal Kelly XEM3005 and breakout board, with the included Opal Kelly FrontPanel Software Development Kit (SDK). Rainer’s entry is the first logic analyzer resulting from the challenge; additional designs will be announced over the next weeks.

Portland, OR – June 30, 2010 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful USB-based FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect, today announced the third result of its “Logic Analyzer in a Day” Challenge. Klaus Zietlow, an Opal Kelly Expert, designed his logic analyzer using the Opal Kelly XEM3005 and breakout board, the included Opal Kelly FrontPanel Software Development Kit (SDK), and National Instruments’ LabVIEW. Klaus’ entry is the third logic analyzer resulting from the challenge. All the logic analyzers created by Opal Kelly Experts are available, for free, on the Opal Kelly website.

Portland, Oregon – June 17, 2010 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful USB-based FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect, today announced the second result of its “Logic Analyzer in a Day” Challenge. In just 10 hours, Opal Kelly Expert Kevin Smith designed a logic analyzer using the Opal Kelly XEM3010 with the included Opal Kelly FrontPanel Software Development Kit (SDK). Kevin’s entry is the second logic analyzer resulting from the challenge; a third design will be announced over the next few weeks.

Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect, today announced the XEM8305 integration module, the latest in a line of FPGA development boards powered by the AMD UltraScale+™ family of FPGAs. The XEM8305 pairs the efficiency of the Artix™ AU15P with the versatility of Opal Kelly’s FrontPanel® SDK to reduce time to market and simplify supply chains.

Portland, Oregon – February 9, 2022 Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect, today announced the XEM8320-AU25P, the official development platform for the Xilinx Artix® UltraScale+™ FPGA. The new platform features Opal Kelly’s FrontPanel® SDK for building high-performance, software-connected FPGA applications. The XEM8320-AU25P also leverages the versatile SYZYGY® modular connectivity for rapid prototyping and expansion.

Portland, Oregon – April 12, 2022 Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect, today announced the XEM8310-AU25P development module for the Xilinx Artix® UltraScale+™ FPGA. The module features Opal Kelly’s FrontPanel® SDK for programming high-performance, software-connected FPGA applications.

PORTLAND, OR – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA USB 2.0 modules ideally suited for development engineering, prototyping, and OEM integration, today announced the volume availability of its new XEM3050 module. Based on the 4,000,000-gate Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA and high-transfer-rate USB 2.0, the XEM3050 features on-board SDRAM, Flash, SSRAM, integrated power supplies, abundant I/O, and is controlled by Opal Kelly’s FrontPanel software and API. The XEM3050 is being used by early adopters at leading engineering firms and universities as the “heart” of electronic product design, prototyping, and simulation. It is eliminating months of engineering development time and expense, as well as dramatically accelerating time to market.

Portland, Oregon – September 6, 2012 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect, using USB or PCI Express, announced the expansion of its FrontPanel cross-platform SDK family to the QNX Neutrino 6.5.0 real-time operating system. With QNX RTOS support, Opal Kelly continues its dedication to hardware platform design, by supporting languages and operating systems that engineers are most comfortable with. Opal Kelly FrontPanel API is now available for 13 OS/language combinations in addition to a shared object (DLL) extending it to nearly any common development environment. FrontPanel/USB for QNX, combined with Opal Kelly USB-based FPGA integration modules, deliver engineering efficiency that significantly accelerates hardware platform design.

Opal Kelly has always maintained an intense focus on creating customer value through the design of innovative, high-quality FPGA Integration modules. Our design strategies, test methodology, quality assurance guidelines, and supplier relationships have always represented this focus. Today, we’re happy to announce that these behind-the-scenes pursuits have become more visible through our recently-achieved ISO 9001:2015 certification.

The Time and Frequency Division of the Ion Storage Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have created an open-source general purpose digital feedback controller using the XEM6010-LX150. According to the project description, “it has been optimized for feedback control of lasers in atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics experiments, but it should be applicable in other control applications with similar bandwidth, noise, and loop shape requirements.”

Portland, Oregon – May 27, 2014 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB or PCI Express, announced the Shuttle TX1 (a.k.a. XEM7350) USB 3.0 FPGA Module, combining a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface and a Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA into an ultra-compact FMC carrier. The Shuttle TX1 USB interface delivers transfer rates exceeding 340MB/s and includes eight high-speed gigabit transceivers for the ultimate JESD204B powerhouse. Kintex-7 transceivers also support other serial standards such as PCI Express, DisplayPort, SATA, HD-SDI, XAUI, Aurora, and others operating at up to 12.5 Gb/s.

Portland, Oregon – November 21, 2019 Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB 2.0 and 3.0, announced the XEM8350 USB 3.0 FPGA Module, combining two SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface and a Xilinx Kintex UltraScale FPGA in a compact module form factor. The XEM8350 dual-connector USB interface delivers transfer rates exceeding 600MB/s to power high bandwidth data transfer. The module also includes 28 high-speed gigabit transceiver lanes via Kintex UltraScale transceivers. Kintex UltraScale transceivers support serial standards such as 10 GbE, JESD-204B, DisplayPort, PCI Express, SATA, HD-SDI, XAUI, Aurora, and others operating at up to 16.375 Gb/s.

Portland, Oregon – January 24, 2011 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using PCI Express or USB 2.0, today announced the XEM6001, an FPGA integration module based on the powerful Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA with high-speed USB 2.0 interface for downloading and control. This XEM6001 module is offered as an upgrade to Opal Kelly’s popular XEM3001, providing many enhancements, while keeping the same footprint and pinout. With its low cost, small size, included FrontPanel™ SDK and large number of general-purpose input/output pins, the XEM6001 is ideal for integration into a broad range of projects.

Portland, Oregon – November 30, 2017 – Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB, announced the release of the SYZYGY™ Brain-1, an open, modular ARM + FPGA development platform featuring the SYZYGY open standard for FPGA peripheral interconnect. Announced earlier this year, SYZYGY is an open standard for connecting high-performance peripherals to FPGA hardware. SYZYGY is intended to satisfy the need for a compact, low cost, low pin-count, high-performance connectivity solution between FPGAs and single-purpose hardware peripherals. The Brain-1 is an open source carrier platform supporting the use of SYZYGY for modular peripheral expansion. The Brain-1 includes a Xilinx Zynq processor combining an ARM Cortex-A9 with a programmable FPGA. With four SYZYGY ports, the platform features modular expansion to high performance peripherals with applications such as high speed data acquisition, machine vision, software-defined radio, robotics, and sensing.

ECN Magazine’s cover story this month is “Bridging the Worlds of Hardware and Software with USB-based FPGA” written by Opal Kelly’s founder and president, Jake Janovetz.

This article describes how a PC-controlled Waveform and Timing Generator (WTG) Instrument was developed using the Opal Kelly XEM3001 FPGA-USB module mated with an Optiphase custom adapter PCB.

Good power management and power integrity is at the heart of all electronic systems. This is especially true of FPGA based systems where I/O and logic switching speeds are fast and current demands at low voltages can be high.

Opal Kelly Incorporated has released version 1.3.0 of its free FrontPanel software and programmer’s interface (API) for use with its Xilinx FPGA modules.

Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA USB 2.0 modules ideally suited for development engineering, prototyping, and OEM integration.

FrontPanel 5.1.0 is now available on the Pins Downloads page. Remember that you need to be logged into Pins to see and access the FrontPanel SDK downloads.

Our latest software update release is focused on several improvements to FrontPanel over IP. In addition to updates to the server and API themselves, we’ve introduced a new Javascript library.

It has come to our attention that, due to a misunderstanding regarding one vendor’s components, the XEM3010-1000 and XEM3010-1500P are not fully RoHS compliant.

All XEM3010-1500P modules currently shipping are now fully RoHS compliant.

All Opal Kelly products are now fully RoHS-compliant, including their popular XEM3001 and XEM3010 FPGA modules as well as all add-on modules and accessories sold through their online store.

Opal Kelly is committed to meeting the new RoHS (lead-free) requirements that will affect the electronics business globally over the next 12 months.

Opal Kelly Announces Spartan-6 FPGA Module with SuperSpeed USB 3.0.

Opal Kelly Announces Spartan-6 FPGA Module with Gigabit Transceivers and SuperSpeed USB 3.0.

Lead times on many electronic components we use for our products continue to increase since our previous update in January.

Lead times on many electronic components we use for our products continue to increase since our previous update in September.

Lead times on many electronic components continue to improve, but are still very long.

Lead times on many electronic components we use for our products continue to increase since our previous update in April.

Lead times on many electronic components we use for our products continue to increase since our previous update in September.

Lead times on many electronic components we use for our products continue to increase since our previous update in May.

This article was sent to our newsletter subscribers in December 2021.

Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB or PCI Express.

No matter how glamorous it may seem, the development and introduction of a new standard to an existing marketplace is not a savory project (see xkcd 927).

The latest version of the SYZYGY specification has a few minor updates as well as the addition of a new port type.

Our friend Clive (Max) Maxfield at TechBits added a brief video to his blog.

Opal Kelly XEM3010 off-the-shelf FPGA USB 2.0 Module is used by Texas Instruments as a key component in their new ADS1675 Reference Design evaluation platform.

Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) modules has announced the hiring of Steve Johnson as the new President and COO to manage the growth and expansion of the business. Steve most recently held dual roles as a Senior Marketing Director at National Instruments (NI) and the GM and senior executive of NI’s Digilent subsidiary. “We’re very excited to have Steve join the company,” said Jake Janovetz, founder and CEO. “His deep insights and experience with both FPGA technology and the Test & Measurement industry will greatly enhance our team and provide exceptional value for our customers.”

When it comes to creating and evaluating embedded solutions, most if not all engineers will be familiar with an evaluation board.

Opal Kelly has released the XEM3010 Xilinx Spartan-3 Integration Module, adding to their line of USB 2.0 FPGA modules for general-purpose and OEM usage.

Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA USB 2.0 modules that provide the essential device-to-computer interconnect for efficient and fast product prototyping.

Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect, today announced a new product family of compact FPGA integration modules using external PCI Express.

Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB or PCI Express, announced the XEM7001 USB 2.0 FPGA Module.

Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB or PCI Express, announced two new USB-based Xilinx Artix-7 integration modules to their lineup.

Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB or PCI Express, announced the XEM7305 USB 3.0 FPGA Module.

Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB or PCI Express, announced the XEM7360 USB 3.0 FPGA Module.

Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB or PCI Express, announced the ZEM5305 USB 3.0 FPGA Module.

Opal Kelly, a leading producer of powerful FPGA modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect using USB or PCI Express, announced the ZEM5310 USB 3.0 FPGA Module.