This flexible nature means that you can do a lot of different things with them, such as trying out different CPU cores (e.g. the open-source RISC-V). FPGAs are also well-suited to processing large amounts of data, because everything doesn’t have to go via one single CPU. You can connect the logic units in such a way that they manipulate the data in the right way, rather than building a processing core that runs a program.
That’s FPGAs but what makes the Orange Crab, in particular, special? Well, it’s in the Feather form factor which means there’s loads of add-on hardware already available; it comes with a whopping 128Mb of DDR 3 memory, 128Mb QSPI flash, and variants supporting the Lattice ECP5 25, 45, and 85. To help you get started, there’s a repository of example code at hsmag.cc/mvQWwW.
For fans of all things open, the Orange Crab is open-source hardware, and is programmable with an open-source toolchain.
At the time of going to press, the final price was yet to be decided, but looked likely to be around $99. If you’re looking to get into FPGA development, this could be an excellent choice.
