Anyone played with these cheap ($50) Zynq boards

[slburris]

I'm looking at a couple of interesting boards.  First up is the EBAZ4203 board.  I've seen this both on eBay and Aliexpress.



Some of the Ali listings have a schematic for the *205* instead of the *203*, but it looks very similar.  I saw an image that looks like this is designed for some piece of equipment, but otherwise I know nothing about it.  Anyone have one of these and tried it?

Second, QMTECH released their Zynq board in the last day or two.  http://www.chinaqmtech.com/xilinx_zynq_soc


This is about $50 at Ali, $80 at eBay.  I have QMTECH's Spartan 6 boards ($15!) and have been quite pleased with them, so I'm interested in getting a few of these.  Of course Ali is going through another phase where they don't accept Paypal, and I've had constant problems with them and credit cards, so either I wait, or go through their eBay site.

But at a $50 price point for ARM + FPGA + ethernet + SD, these are cheap enough to be used for many projects I previously would have thought long and hard about the cost.

Scott

[tggzzz]

I haven't played with those.

Points I'd look at would include:

• choice of i/o voltages
• multiple evenly distributed ground connections, for off-board signals (the i/o transitions can be fast)
• board definition files for Vivado
• online support
• will it be available in 12 months

[ralphrmartin]

I haven't either, but for the second one, there appears to be some fairly useful documentation, and example code, at
https://github.com/ChinaQMTECH/ZYNQ_STARTER_KIT
which gives me sufficient confidence to buy one of these boards and give it a go.

[slburris]

I haven't played with those.

Points I'd look at would include:

will it be available in 12 months

I wouldn't count on the first board.  I'm thinking now it might be a pull from some equipment.  The qmtech stuff I have reasonable hope would still be around, as that has been my experience with their other boards.  They seem to be in the business of pumping out inexpensive FPGA boards, and they actually write documentation!

I can't even buy the chips from Digikey for what I can purchase the entire board for, not to mention as a hobbyist I'm not even going to try with BGA packages....

[fourtytwo42]

I haven't either, but for the second one, there appears to be some fairly useful documentation, and example code, at
https://github.com/ChinaQMTECH/ZYNQ_STARTER_KIT
which gives me sufficient confidence to buy one of these boards and give it a go.

Be careful with QMTECH stuff on Github, I too thought an FPGA (Cyclone IV + DRAM) board I ordered was very well documented there till I looked closer, first of all the filenames were very jumbled and mixed up so what you thought it would be was not, e.g. manuals were schematics and code for one thing was another AND many of the code comments were in Chinese!! Also complex pieces of code had no corresponding description. Otherwise I hope good value if it turns out to work.

[SiliconWizard]

I haven't either, but for the second one, there appears to be some fairly useful documentation, and example code, at
https://github.com/ChinaQMTECH/ZYNQ_STARTER_KIT
which gives me sufficient confidence to buy one of these boards and give it a go.

Be careful with QMTECH stuff on Github, I too thought an FPGA (Cyclone IV + DRAM) board I ordered was very well documented there till I looked closer, first of all the filenames were very jumbled and mixed up so what you thought it would be was not, e.g. manuals were schematics and code for one thing was another AND many of the code comments were in Chinese!! Also complex pieces of code had no corresponding description. Otherwise I hope good value if it turns out to work.

I've bought a few QMTECH boards with Spartan 6 and Artix 7 FPGAs and the boards themselves are fine. The schematics were also correct. I admit the documentation is otherwise not perfect, and the source code, meh, but I don't really care - after all, all you need is the schematics. The rest is fully documented elsewhere (Xilinx, RAM datasheets, etc)

[colorado.rob]

I've bought a few QMTECH boards with Spartan 6 and Artix 7 FPGAs and the boards themselves are fine. The schematics were also correct. I admit the documentation is otherwise not perfect, and the source code, meh, but I don't really care - after all, all you need is the schematics. The rest is fully documented elsewhere (Xilinx, RAM datasheets, etc)

Yeah, but did it come with proper Vivado board files or even a master XDC?

[asmi]

Yeah, but did it come with proper Vivado board files or even a master XDC?

You don't need any of that if you have schematics and know how to read it. I never bothered to create board files for any of my custom boards.

[CJay]

I'm looking at a couple of interesting boards.  First up is the EBAZ4203 board.  I've seen this both on eBay and Aliexpress.

Of course Ali is going through another phase where they don't accept Paypal, and I've had constant problems with them and credit cards, so either I wait, or go through their eBay site.

Scott

I saw those boards too, look like they were designed for a specific application and have been 'salvaged', doesn't make them less useful unless of course they've not broken out enough pins to connectors, they are, for now, a little bit 'too much' hardware for me.

Ali is still accepting Paypal, I ordered some ESP8266 boards and paid with Paypal but noticed that I couldn't use Paypal for the FPGA board when I placed my last order so it may be an individual seller preference rather than the whole of Aliexpress?

[mac.6]

Just ordered the QMtech board, I already have their Artix7+sdr one and good price to play with zynq.

Starting looking at buildroot support, seems close to the xilinx dev board so should be easy to support.

[ralphrmartin]

Be careful with QMTECH stuff on Github, I too thought an FPGA (Cyclone IV + DRAM) board I ordered was very well documented there till I looked closer, first of all the filenames were very jumbled and mixed up so what you thought it would be was not, e.g. manuals were schematics and code for one thing was another AND many of the code comments were in Chinese!! Also complex pieces of code had no corresponding description. Otherwise I hope good value if it turns out to work.

A lot of their github documentation for this pargticular board has just been uploaded in the last couple of weeks, and while I haven't looked at  all their examples, what I did look at seemed to make sense. YMMV. Anyway, I've got one ordered in the 11.11 sale. We will see.

[SiliconWizard]

I've bought a few QMTECH boards with Spartan 6 and Artix 7 FPGAs and the boards themselves are fine. The schematics were also correct. I admit the documentation is otherwise not perfect, and the source code, meh, but I don't really care - after all, all you need is the schematics. The rest is fully documented elsewhere (Xilinx, RAM datasheets, etc)

Yeah, but did it come with proper Vivado board files or even a master XDC?

Depends on the board. What I've seen for the Artix-7 board is a couple example projects that are working as is. Are they any good? Well, AFAIR, there's like one blinking LED example, and a memory controller example which is just an auto-generated project from Vivado. Nothing to write home about. The constraint files are strictly written for those projects, so don't contain all pins. But again, you just need the schematic. Writing your own constraint files is not hard.

I'd say those boards are definitely not meant for beginners if that's the question. If you're beginning, just go for a Digilent board or something.

[chickenHeadKnob]

Comparing QMtech board to MYIR Z-turn lite 7010. Myir has 32 bit RAM and 4GB emmc versus 16 bit RAM and no emmc in QMtech. Also has high density board to board connector versus 2.54 mm header holes. I would spend a little more and get the MYIR.

[RoGeorge]

Some more step by step 101 and example projects are in the two books "The Zynq Book", free to download in electronic format, for the ZedBoard and Zybo boards.

http://www.zynqbook.com/
http://www.zynqbook.com/download-book.php

HDL sources are available to download together with the other book, too:
http://www.zynqbook.com/download-tuts.html

[mac.6]

Comparing QMtech board to MYIR Z-turn lite 7010. Myir has 32 bit RAM and 4GB emmc versus 16 bit RAM and no emmc in QMtech. Also has high density board to board connector versus 2.54 mm header holes. I would spend a little more and get the MYIR.

For me it's just educational, I won't use it in a project where performance matters.

[lty1993]

The EBAZ4203 boards are salvaged controller board from ebit miners (cryptocurrency miners).

There is a schematic available on the internet for that board, so it is not so bad for a dev board, consider the price.

These boards becoming expensive recently. I got 5 of them a few months ago, and it only cost $4/pcs including shipping.

[artag]

Anyway, I've got one ordered in the 11.11 sale. We will see.

Have you got a link please ?
I've found Cyclone and other boards with a sale price, but not the lower-end Zynq boards.

[ralphrmartin]

Try this link.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000323573953.html

Edit: I see that doesn't give any discount. I've got mine ordered directly by a chum in China, from Taobao, rather than the above link, using https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=607479203853, but you have to order something else too to get the price high enough for a discount.

[ebastler]

Just ordered the QMtech board,

How did you do that? For me, their online store only offers chocolate cake:   
http://www.chinaqmtech.com/store

[artag]

Chocolate-coated FPGAs ! Who wouldn't  be happy with that ?

[mac.6]

Just ordered the QMtech board,

How did you do that? For me, their online store only offers chocolate cake:   
http://www.chinaqmtech.com/store

look like a badly generated web site 
Check their store on aliepress instead

[SiliconWizard]

Just ordered the QMtech board,

How did you do that? For me, their online store only offers chocolate cake:   
http://www.chinaqmtech.com/store

Ahah, excellent! The links for the cakes lead to nowhere, so yes, I think this is just a temporary page based on some template or something... but that sure looks like fun and won't help their business.
(And yeah you can buy from them on Aliexpress.)

[SiliconWizard]

Speaking of QMTECH, I just saw they released a board with a XC7A100T and 256MBytes of DDR3 (their previous board with a XC7A100T had no RAM) for 73EUR (~80USD) (Aliexpress).
Not too shabby.

[Scrts]

Speaking of QMTECH, I just saw they released a board with a XC7A100T and 256MBytes of DDR3 (their previous board with a XC7A100T had no RAM) for 73EUR (~80USD) (Aliexpress).
Not too shabby.

HERE

[mac.6]

Got my board today. Serious packaging (real box) and things I did not expect a this price:
5v/2A power supply (barrel, EU plug)
microUSB cable for CP2102 serial (linux console).
16MB sandisk sdcard with preloaded linux.

Matte black finish is nice.
Some minor grip: need 5v supply for boot, but no on/off switch. USB power leak on the board when plugged.
Less minor: zynq decoupling is minimal, even less than my artix7 board from them (both do not have backside decoupling like Digilent boards).
I don't know if it will have impact or not.
I guess cutted corners are expected at this price level and it's fine for me as long as it is quite stable for educational use.
Now let me see if the buildroot image I have done is booting or not (probably not).

[mac.6]

I have added the board support in buildroot:
https://github.com/m-chabot/buildroot/tree/zynq_qmtech

Note that since ethernet is on PL side, there is no network in linux unless you add the correct bitfile.

[FenTiger]

I ordered a few of these too. They took 10 days from order to delivery - not bad for China!

Here's what came in the package:

• The board itself, packed in bubble wrap and an antistatic ziplock bag.
  
• A 16Gb micro SD card, already in the slot, preloaded with Linux. It's not necessary to work through the getting started guide at first; you can just plug it in and take a look.
• A 5V wall wart - with an American plug on it, and I don't have an adapter. Doh! Not a huge problem though, since I have a 5V supply already.
  
• Mini USB cable.

There are no mounting holes. Are these things so price sensitive that they couldn't afford to drill four holes in the corners? Building anything real around this will involve using it as a daughterboard.

Decoupling is, as mac.6 says, minimal. There are no parts at all on the underside of the board; I expected at least a few capacitors near the power pins.

At power on, Linux boots in about 5 seconds. The board draws about 200mA while booting, dropping to 160mA once up.

Taking a quick look at the peripherals:

The micro USB port is connected via a CP2102N USB-to-serial chip to PS UART 1. Obviously this limits flexibility - it can't enumerate as a HID, say, or as multiple serial ports - but the data sheet claims that it runs at up to 3 Mbaud, so there should be plenty of throughput.

The Ethernet PHY is an IP101GA. It links up at 100Mbps, and I measured the throughput at 98 Mbps in both directions. Not too shabby! I didn't measure the latency.

I took a quick look at the IO headers too. The first observation is that there aren't many ground pins; maybe there'll be crosstalk between the adjacent IOs. There aren't a lot of power pins, either.

At least some of the IO pins appear to be routed as length matched differential pairs. Maybe it's possible to use them at high speed.  I haven't looked closely, though.

[slburris]

Now that a couple of you have had these boards for a month, do you think they are worthwhile to get over more commercial products, say the mini-zed or Cora z7?

[ralphrmartin]

In the end I got rid of mine, and bought a Pynq Z2 which looks rather more flexible, for 990 RMB.

[colorado.rob]

In the end I got rid of mine, and bought a Pynq Z2 which looks rather more flexible, for 990 RMB.

Great choice.  I have two of them.  Extremely versatile boards.  In the US, they can be had for 120USD from Newark/Avnet.

The one caveat with these boards is that the PL clock from the Ethernet PHY is glitchy unless connected to a switch when doing PL-only designs.  I think that's likely the case for all boards that use the same Realtek PHY.

[ralphrmartin]

Rob
perhaps you can help me with an issue I am having then! 
I've got a bitstream which includes a processor, and an audio IP block which just passes audio from line in to headphones (processor and audio not connected yet, to be done later, and the audio IP to be made more interesting).
Now, when I load the bitstream via JTAG, the audio IP runs just fine, and I can hear the passthrough.
However, if I load the bitstream from Python as an overlay, I get no audio output.
I dont really understand why the same bitstream behaves differently in these two cases.
(I've got other bitstreams up and running OK to mess with leds and switches from Python).
Any insights you can offer?
Thanks, and sorry to others for going a bit off topic...
Ralph