CycloMod is a system on module for when you need a little more than a simple MCU. It combines the versatility of an FPGA with the ease of use of the Raspberry Pi RP2350 MCU, in the SparkFun MicroMod form-factor.

To save board realestate and cost, CycloMod is designed to share a reference crystal and flash. The FPGA can be loaded manually with openFPGAloader via PICO-DirtyJTAG, or automatically using Altera’s JBC player.

A Flexible Way to Discover FPGAs

The SparkFun MicroMod ecosystem is a great fit for FPGAs. Most development boards are restricted to a fixed set of peripherals that are built on the board with some expansion options, but MicroMod allows a single core subsystem to take on a variety of personalities with different carrier boards. There are a wide range of off-the-shelf options and a well documented process for creating custom carriers.

The Best of Both Worlds

FPGAs are very powerful, but features like native USB are not common and updating images can be a chore. CycloMod includes the modern Raspberry Pi RP2350 to enable drag-n-drop firmware updates, and a flexible USB interface. The RP2350 includes dual Arm Cortex M33 and dual RISC-V cores so developers have their choice of ecosystem. The FPGA is attached to the QMI bus to enable easy eXecute In Place (XIP) memory mapped access from the processor cores. The system is also designed to share MCU features like reference crystal and flash.

The Heart of Your Next System

CycloMod provides a tightly integrated core module ready to be embedded in a variety of applications. The complications of 0.5 mm BGAs and switching regulator layout have been competed for you, allowing you to focus on the features unique to your application. SparkFun chose common M.2 connectors for their form factor so the parts are cost effective and easy to acquire. The module is less than 1 square inch so it can fit almost anywhere. Putting an FPGA in this form factor provides the ultimate pin flexibility. The biggest limitation may be your imagination.

Features & Specificatoins

• FPGA: Altera Cyclone 10LP 10CL016YM164
  • 16K LUT-4
  • 504 Kb RAM
  • 56 18x18 multipliers
• MCU: Raspberry Pi RP2350
  • Dual Arm Cortex-M33
  • Dual Hazard3 RISC-V
  • 150 MHz
  • 520 KB SRAM
• Storage: 16 MB Flash
• Reference Clock: 12 MHz Crystal
• Dimensions: 22 x 22 mm (0.86 x 0.86 in)
• Form Factor: SparkFun MicroMod

Open Source

The best part is that the hardware design is open-source on GitHub. This means if you find a limitation in your development, you have the ability to modify the design, and the files are available for you to order on your own to alleviate sourcing concerns. The firmware and examples are also open-source with permissive licenses like MIT-0, to provide an unrestricted foundation for your application development.

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