Pre-Order: Optional - Zynq Configuration

[JohnHoleman]

I'm considering pre-ordering one of the Parallella boards (got a paycheck coming up with some disposable money left over) and was curious about the Zynq option.

My intent is to see if I can work to board into a mobile platform I've been working on (read "mobile robot" not "consumer device") and am curious about the nominal/peak power consumption of the 7020 model compared to the 7010 model.

How big a difference is there?

What about performance differences apart from power consumption? From a quick perusal of the Xilinx web page it appears that the 7020 has quite a few more logic units available to it than the 7010 - how does that translate into performance of the Parallella as a whole?


Thanks!

[LamsonNguyen]

The Epiphany chip uses 2W and the Parallella board uses 5W, so the Zynq uses < 3W. The performance difference between the two models depends on if you use the additional logic gates for something else that justifies the increase, since only a small number is required for communication between the ARM and Epiphany chips. See the for more details.

[JohnHoleman]

I'll take a look at that. Thanks!

[timpart]

The Zynq contains programmable logic and digital signal processing circuits. Some of these are needed to glue together the computer so it can talk to the other chips on the board. The size of the Zynq doesn't affect the basic performance.

You can however program the unused parts of the Zynq to speed up your own special applications. Adapteva provide the code to their bits of Zynq programming so you should be able to integrate your bits in without difficulty. The HDMI output from the card apparently consumes a significant chunk of Zynq logic but you could dispose of that for your purposes.

The other main difference between 7010 and 7020 is that the 7010 has fewer GPIO pins to talk to the outside world. (Bank 13 isn't there IIRC) So only the 7020 model has all of the signals available that are mentioned on the specs.

These discussions might also be useful




Tim

[JohnHoleman]

Thanks, Tim!