November 15th, 2024

A programmable FPGA SoM in the tiny microSD form factor

The Signaloid C0-microSD is a programmable FPGA System-on-Module that raised $10,514 for hardware acceleration in industrial applications, featuring a RISC-V processor and supporting custom designs with a carrier board option.

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A programmable FPGA SoM in the tiny microSD form factor

The Signaloid C0-microSD is a programmable FPGA System-on-Module (SoM) designed to fit into standard microSD slots, enabling hardware acceleration for various data-processing tasks in industrial automation, manufacturing, and robotics. The project has successfully raised $10,514, exceeding its $2,500 goal, with 34 days remaining until the funding deadline on December 19, 2024. The C0-microSD is based on the Lattice Semiconductor iCE40 FPGA and comes preloaded with a C0 RISC-V processor SoC, allowing users to load custom FPGA designs or utilize it as a co-processor. It features six configurable I/O pins and supports the LiteX framework for custom SoC designs. The device can be integrated into existing systems with microSD slots, making it versatile for various applications. Additionally, the campaign offers the Signaloid SD-Dev, a carrier board that enhances the development experience by providing additional I/O and power measurement capabilities. The manufacturing will be outsourced, with fulfillment handled by Mouser Electronics. The project emphasizes compatibility with open-source toolchains and aims to ensure broad platform support, although it has primarily been tested on Unix-based systems.

- The Signaloid C0-microSD is a programmable FPGA SoM in a microSD form factor.

- The project has raised 420% of its funding goal with 34 days left.

- It supports custom FPGA designs and comes preloaded with a RISC-V processor.

- The device can be integrated into existing systems with microSD slots.

- An optional carrier board, the Signaloid SD-Dev, is available for enhanced development capabilities.

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By @utopcell - 6 months
Though it is cool to see a minute FPGA dev board, I don't see the value proposition here. At $45, it is too expensive to use in a product. What is the killer app for this board?

One can get a significantly more powerful Tang Nano 20K [1] kit on Amazon right now for $31 [2].

[1] wiki.sipeed.com/hardware/en/tang/tang-nano-20k/nano-20k.html

[2] https://www.amazon.com/youyeetoo-Sipeed-Development-RISC-V-E...

By @alnwlsn - 6 months
Reminds me of the old Electric Imp, which was like an ESP32 before the ESP32. Also came in a (full size) SD card form factor.
By @cjaackie - 6 months
I was actually lucky to have gotten a FOMU from mithro years ago at a hacker event. It was really fun to play around with micropython on the RISC-V softcore [0]! Thanks to RE the entire toolchain (formerly yosys) is open source for the lattice ICE40 [1] and they continue to add more fpga bitstreams like the ECP5.

If anyone is looking for a cheap (~$15) and larger fpga board to tinker with, look no further than the ColorLight 5A-75b [2]

[0] https://github.com/im-tomu/fomu-workshop/blob/master/docs/ri...

[1] https://f4pga.org/

[2] https://hackaday.com/2020/01/24/new-part-day-led-driver-is-f...

By @rasz - 6 months
The only use case that comes to my mind is extracting live data from device strictly recording onto SDcard, but wifi enabled SDcards designed for that purpose are already on the market since 2010 (eyefi).
By @mattofak - 6 months
This sounds fun to play with and get feet wet in HDL, but it's only a lattice ice40, I have no idea what you'd seriously do with this. Usually ice40 are used as glue logic, or multiplexing/buffering a bunch of ADC/DAC chips so the processor can do large data transfers instead of a bunch of tiny ones.

The website claims hardware acceleration and... I doubt they got timing closure on the soft CPU at anything greater than 100MHz and you still have to get data to/from it at likely 30~40 MB/s via an SDMMC bus.

By @lfmunoz4 - 6 months
I first I thought this was a regular storage microSD with an FPGA that allows you change the data live as as it is saved or something. But seems to be an fpga that has microSD connection with no real storage capability like you would have in a reguar microSD (other than storage for fpga bitstream), i.e it is not storage device use case. But why microSD? Is it just because you can load the bitstream without having to use uart or jtag?

"The Signaloid C0-microSD has two main use cases: You can either (1) use it as a hot-pluggable FPGA module, or (2) use it as a hot-pluggable Signaloid C0 RISC-V co-processor module."

That is not really a use case. Use case usually gives examples of how they are used in production, i.e, more specific about applications.

By @0xmarcin - 6 months
I am a bit concerned here. I wonder how much time will pass before someone decide to use it to hack a computer?
By @jamesy0ung - 6 months
What sort of applications is a FPGA in this smaller class useful for?