Simple question: How much memory (IMEM, DRAM, etc.) do the softcores on the CW312T-XC7A35 have? I have searched the documentation and I can’t seem to find a clear answer. Similarly, I can’t seem to find a concrete size for the number of LUTs the board has if I were to want to flash my own core onto it.
I have been running into size limitations on the ICE40, so a physically larger board would be helpful.
I am not certain if I am just looking in the wrong place, but any guidance would be appreciated.
For information on the XC7A35’s resources, consult the Xilinx website (start here).
Apples-to-apples comparisons from datasheets is hard (e.g. a “LUT” is not a standard measurement unit), but the XC7A35 is much larger than the iCE40.
You can simply try to build your firmware; for example, if I run make PLATFORM=CW312_IBEX CRYPTO=TINYAES128C in firmware/mcu/simpleserial-aes, the make output tells me:
Memory region Used Size Region Size %age Used
ram: 5056 B 56 KB 8.82%
stack: 4 KB 8 KB 50.00%
Similarly, if you’re interested in running a different core on the FPGA, try implementing it in Vivado.
Follow the links here to find Vivado project files for all the example FPGA target designs included with ChipWhisperer.
BTW you can find pointers to all this information here.
You can do all of this prior to purchasing. If the XC7A35 is too small, we have several larger FPGA target boards (CW305, 310, 340).