Oak Development Technologies' IcyBlue Feather Is a Breadboard-Friendly FPGA Dev Board
Built around a Lattice Semi ICE5LP4K FPGA, this Feather-format development board aims to lower barriers to entry.
Oak Development Technologies has opened pre-orders for a compact dev board designed to ease users into working with FPGAs: the breadboard-friendly Lattice Semi ICE5LP4K-based IcyBlue Feather.
"This unique FPGA feather allows you to easily get started with FPGA development with a highly capable and robust ICE5LP4K FPGA from Lattice Semiconductor," explains Oak's Seth Kerr of his creation. "The ICE5LP4K brings two hardware I2C and SPI blocks, a bright RGB LED, two user LEDS, and 22 accessible GPIO through the headers of the Feather board."
Based on the popular breadboard-compatible Feather form factor, the IcyBlue Feather includes an FTDI FT232HQ USB bridge on-board, providing an easy way to program and power the device via its USB connector — and boasting compatibility with both Lattice Semi's proprietary Diamond Programmer software and open source tools including Project IceStorm.
"[Using] the Feather form factor developed by Adafruit also means that this project is mobile with battery power," Kerr adds, referring to a lithium battery connector to the top of the board. "This is particularly useful for developing on the go and mobile deployments of your FPGA projects."
Kerr isn't the first to try putting an FPGA into a Feather form factor. Three years ago Greg Davill launched the OrangeCrab, which uses the same layout as the IcyBlue Feather but with a larger — and correspondingly Lattice Semi ECP5-25F FPGA on-board.
Oak is taking pre-orders for the IcyBlue Feather on its website at $69.95, a discount from a planned $84.95 retail price, with hardware expected to ship in May.