In this blog post we introduce the GR740-MINI board, a compact evaluation platform for the GR740 rad-hard microprocessor and the CertusPro-NX-RT FPGA.
The GR740-MINI packs a lot of computing power into a very small form factor (7×9.5 cm). Furthermore, its FMC+ connector allows to extend the GR740-MINI board with expansions boards connected to the GR740 via SpaceWire and to the FPGA through pins under user control.
Developing with the GR740 SoC
The GR740 is a rad-hard system-on-chip featuring a quad-core fault-tolerant LEON4 processor, a SpaceWire router, Gigabit Ethernet interfaces and much more. Supported by many operating systems and hypervisors, this microprocessor enables a myriad of applications.
The GRMON hardware debugger provides an easy to use and reliable interface for software development. The evaluation version is available for download and it supports both Windows and Linux operating systems.
Once connected to the GR740 with GRMON, software development is facilitated by the bare-metal, RTEMS and Linux toolchains, available in open source from our website.
For example, one can download the RTEMS toolchain:
Then connect with GRMON and run one of the examples:
In short, the journey from unboxing the board to running advanced software applications on the GR740 is remarkably rapid.
Designing for the CertusPro-NX FPGA
The GR740-MINI board provides a FPGA which is functionally equivalent to the CertusPro-NX-RT, a radiation-tolerant FPGA with 96 thousand logical cells, and support for high-speed serial link interfaces. Lattice provides the Radiant software for everything from design entry to bitstream generation.
The FPGA design process is simplified with the GRLIB VHDL library, offering space-grade IPs for plenty of communication controllers and memory interfaces. While the GRLIB support for the Certus and CertusPro FPGAs is only available in commercial version of the library (we’ll soon write a dedicated blog post about it), some example bitstreams for the GR740-MINI board are directly available for download.
GRMON can directly program the CertusPro-NX FPGA using the fpgaload command:
The GR740-MINI Quick Start Guide provides comprehensive descriptions of the example bitstreams. These bitstreams serve as practical demonstrations of the functionalities achievable with GRLIB IP cores.
They instantiate various components such as memory controllers, PCI and Ethernet controllers, LEON processors, and even include features such as a SpaceWire router and a SpaceFibre & WizardLink controller.
Conclusion
The GR740-MINI offers a combination of a rad-hard processor and a versatile FPGA, showcasing a low-power solution for many space applications. During software and FPGA development, monitoring and control is easy with the GRMON3 debugger, and the GRLIB IP library offers a great resource for simplifying the FPGA development process.