Awesome

Snowflake FPGA HAT

As an experiment, I am designing a PCB using only my Pi 4 4GB. Any other machine is off-limits. This includes

• Schematic entry
• Layout
• Datasheets and reference material
• Background Twitter browsing
• Rendering PCB glamour shots:

This is a HAT (Raspberry Pi addon board) with an iCE40 HX8k FPGA. The Pi can program the FPGA, and communicate with it via a UART, or a fast, bidirectional SDIO link. This project was spurred by the realisation that Pi 4 is a plausible FPGA development platform: faster processors, expanded memory and, above all, dramatic improvements in Symbiotic EDA's open source design flows in the last few years.

View schematic (PDF)

With the exception of the datasheet/ directory (to which I do not lay claim), this repository is distributed under the Apache-2.0 License.

Features

• iCE40 HX8k
• 4 Mbit SRAM 16 bit wide, 10 ns access
• 4 Mbit flash for FPGA image and user data; dual I/O support
• 3 PMOD-compatible expansion headers
  • 8 3.3V IOs each, plus power and ground
  • 2 headers on one side, 1 on another; the two on one side have standard 0.9" spacing, allowing use of dual-PMOD boards
• Communication with host Pi:
  • UART
  • SPI for flash programming
  • SDIO for fast communications
  • FPGA reset, and configuration status (CDONE)
• 8 user pushbuttons and LEDs
• Reset button and configuration status LED
• Audio output via 3.5 mm jack (same audio circuit as Pi)

Tolerances

Of the 121 balls on the FPGA's BGA package, I am using 120; the sole unconnected ball is VPP_FAST, which is used only for NVCM programming. This will make the layout exceptionally tight, which is part of the experiment! For a fighting chance, I am using JLCPCB to manufacture the prototype boards, rather than my usual iTead. Their tighter manufacturing tolerances should permit two traces between 0.3 mm pads on a 0.8 mm-pitch BGA, which allows the first 3 ranks of balls to be routed out on layer 1.

The capability requirements for this board are:

• Via drill 0.2 mm
• Via diameter 0.45 mm
• Copper min width 0.09 mm
• Copper-copper clearance 0.09 mm
• Solder mask expansion 0.05 mm

Stackup

This is a 4-layer board.

• L1: signal, GND fill
• L2: GND plane
• L3: Power polygons (+5V, +3V3, +1V2)
• L4: signal, GND fill

All layers 1 oz/sqft copper. Assumed stacking for FR4 layers:

• L1-L2 0.2 mm prepreg
• L2-L3 1.2 mm core
• L3-L4 0.2 mm prepreg

These dimensions are not critical. Signal integrity will be improved by minimising separation of L1-L2, but none of the routing is impedance-controlled.