Mysterious FPGA board - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: alin_im
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 11:20:32 am
content: Hey guys,I just bought an electronics job lot from ebay and I found 10 of those boards.Any ideas what it is ? I could not find any data sheet. It has a marking on it M2041v2 and it contains a big Xilinx FPGA xc3s500e.It looks like a mini dev board.Alin I.

author: bktemp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 11:28:32 am
content: What is the second IC? Is it a memory or some other controller?Does it have any other IO connector on the bottom? It is a rather large FPGA package for only 32 IOs (including power). So I don't think it is a dev board. It looks more like a processing or interfacing module requiring only a couple of IOs.

author: alin_im
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 11:35:39 am
content: The big chip is an 18MB SRAM - CY7C1371D-100AXI-ND and it also has a 32 MB Flash - M29DW323DB70ZE6E.Yes it has another big density connector on the bottom of the board.From what i have added on the digikey only those 3 ICs are about 75 pounds.

author: Wilksey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 11:36:19 am
content: That isn't an M, it's a I12041v2, not sure that 'I' is part of the number.No idea what it is though!

author: alin_im
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 11:42:51 am
content: it had a sticker that had that number M2041v2 but I removed it so i can see the FPGA part number

author: pieman103021
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 12:32:20 pm
content: Out of curiosity, do you have a picture of the other side too? This is a neat find.Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

author: alin_im
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 12:39:54 pm
content: I want to sell them if you are interested, PM.

author: bktemp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 12:43:35 pm
content: Is that the old cambridge silicon radio logo?http://www.csr.com/http://logosandbrands.directory/csr-plc/

author: alin_im
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 12:51:05 pm
content: yeap

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 01:06:25 pm
content: It is probably a board which was used to "chip" an xbox 360. They used complicated FPGAs and such to circumvent protection and play copied games.

author: CM800
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 01:37:28 pm
content: I'd buy one if there was a datasheet or schematic. Not really any use otherwise?

author: alin_im
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 01:43:56 pm
content: you can program it with a JTAG and you can try to identify the breakout pins using a blinky code. in a couple of hours you should be able to know all the breakout pins if you trail and error. it should not be that hard to do it.

author: CM800
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 01:51:57 pm
content: Spartan 3 isn't supported by Windows 10 is it? :/

author: alin_im
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 01:55:53 pm
content: Unfortunately, i cannot give you an answer, but I don't see why it would not work and I am sure that you will find the answer if you google it. Spartan 3E is one of the most popular series from Xilinx and I think that it will work.

author: cowana
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 01:56:53 pm
content: Without knowing the exact details of the supporting circuitry (pullups, filters, level translators), trying to use the board for any project would be immensely frustrating. Even trying to determine the connections of the memory interface could be very tricky - as they're not all high impedance, driving each of the FPGAs IO pins with a simple 'blinky' sketch could end up causing stress and potential damage to the FPGAs output drivers.Could be a neat board for experimenting with if you can find a schematic for it though!

author: alin_im
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 02:09:55 pm
content: The only things that were written on the label were: M2041v2 Casirack UNASM50714 and a serial number. I am trying to find some data about it but no luck so far.

author: mngiggle
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2017, 02:18:44 pm
content: Casira is a dev kit (or line of them?) from CSR, now part of Qualcomm.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2017, 08:16:49 pm
content: Spartan3 works fine on Win10, the operating system is not an issue, you just need the right version of ISE. The popular Papilio One FPGA board uses the same FPGA in a smaller package with fewer pins. You should be able to run any of the arcade cores on there, Pacman, Galaxian, Frogger, etc. That FPGA is big enough to hold the ROMs internally and you've got that nice big SRAM which should be good for retro computer projects and such. Looks like a nice little board.

author: matkar
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2017, 06:46:27 pm
content: Since you know who's the producer, why not contacting their support and ask them nicely for any documentation they might have? Chances are they have some kind of SDK available. That opens a whole new perspective.

author: alin_im
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2017, 10:46:09 pm
content: i did that, no reply. i had send it 2 weeks ago....

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2017, 11:06:09 pm
content: Quote from: alin_im on April 19, 2017, 10:46:09 pmZero chance of getting anything from someone like CSR they only talk to very high volume customers.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2017, 11:14:39 pm
content: Figure out the JTAG and it's pretty easy to work out the rest. Put put some code in there that twiddles the I/O pins and then start working out which goes to where. It's likely fairly straightforward, FPGA pins connected directly to the RAM and headers. If you know someone who can xray the board that can make it easier to trace.

author: Rasz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 04:28:34 pm
content: Quote from: alin_im on April 07, 2017, 01:43:56 pmthats billable $200 right there

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 05:58:50 pm
content: Billable to who?If I based all of my hobby activities on billable hours I'd just quit having hobbies and get a second job.

author: alin_im
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 07:16:02 pm
content: At the moment I am pretty busy with other projects and my dissertation so it is too much fuss for some boards that I found in a 15 pounds job lot.My intention was to sell them as quickly as possible because at the moment I have no use for them, so if you know some that it is interested to buy them please PM me, I have 8 of them.

author: Rasz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 08:02:45 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on April 20, 2017, 05:58:50 pmThe older you get the more precious your time becomes. If your hobby is reverse engineering old random dev boards then more power to you! I suspect most people would like to actually use fpga rather than spend weekends investigating pcb connections.If this was $500 FPGA chip situation would be totally different, but $35 gets you fully documented board from china with same spartan.

author: migry
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2017, 10:17:24 pm
content: I was given one of these boards, and a little information.I am told that the 14 way connector is for JTAG and apparently is a Xilinx standard. I googled for "xilinx fpga cable" and I got 3 hits on Ebay, whose pictures show the small 14 connector. One cheap £20 programmer shows an adapter board. My programmer would need an adapter cable.All pins of the 32 pin connector connect to GPIO pins on the FPGA. Just a quick idea. If you can get JTAG to connect, then you could in theory use the boundary scan chain to toggle all I/O pins, one by one, and by this tedious method find out the mapping of these pins to Xilinx I/O pads. This same method could be used to figure out the wiring of the FPGA to the SRAM chip too. Tedious but do-able.Power is via the 60 pin(?) Samtec connector on the bottom. Any ideas if you can buy a matching breakout board? The 3 small square ICs to the right of the DIP switches are the regulators. It's not obvious where to connect the power

author: alin_im
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 10:04:59 am
content: It has some test pins with the required voltages that are needed to power the board. I hope they can be visiblein the photos.