Microchip Technology (Asia General Manager and Korea Representative Han Byung-don) provides easier access to RISC-V® and FPGA design for everyone from students and entry-level professionals to experienced engineers through a fully featured, low-cost embedded development kit.

Microchip announced on the 21st that it has launched the PolarFire® SoC Discovery Kit.

This development kit is a user-friendly product equipped with various features for embedded processing and computing acceleration, designed to allow engineers of all levels easy access to new technologies.

In addition, this open source development kit features a quad-core, RISC-V application-class processor supporting Linux® and real-time applications, various low-power peripherals, and high-performance FPGA logic elements (LEs).

This kit is fully featured yet offered at an affordable price and can be used for rapid application concept testing, firmware application development, and user code programming and debugging.

Shakeel Peera, Vice President of FPGA Strategy at Microchip, said, “Microchip is committed to supporting the growth of embedded systems using low-power, high-performance FPGA fabrics.” “The PolarFire® SoC Discovery Kit is a pivotal step in Microchip’s journey to develop smart, secure, high-performance computing solutions with greater accessibility for deployment in a wide range of applications,” said a representative. “With the new Discovery Kit, engineers at all levels, from college students to experienced design engineers, will be able to utilize low-cost RISC-V and FPGA development platforms.”

In addition to existing sales channels, the PolarFire SoC Discovery Kit is also expected to be available for purchase through a pilot project as part of the Microchip Academic Program in the second half of 2024.

Microchip provides this Discovery Kit to universities at a discounted price so that future engineers can experience cutting-edge technology firsthand, enhancing students' practical learning experiences and helping them align their accumulated academic knowledge with the latest industry trends.

Microchip's academic programs provide resources for educators, researchers, and students worldwide and support universities in integrating cutting-edge technology into their curricula.

Professor Steven Osburn of the Fulton School of Engineering at Arizona State University said, “Capstone projects are a special opportunity for students preparing for employment to develop practical applications.” “Many students at Arizona State University are using the PolarFire SoC Discovery Kit in their projects this year, and it has been a very valuable experience to receive not only development boards but also mentoring through Microchip’s academy program,” he said. “Students are gaining practical experience by using new technologies to complete actual engineering projects and find innovative solutions to real-world problems.”

The Discovery Kit is built on a PolarFire MPFS095T SoC FPGA equipped with an embedded microprocessor subsystem consisting of a quad-core 64-bit CPU cluster based on RISC-V ISA (instruction set architecture).

A large L2 memory subsystem can be configured for performance or deterministic operation, which supports asymmetric multi-processing (AMP) mode.

This board supports Microchip's Mi-V ecosystem, MikroBUS™ expansion headers for Click Boards™, a 40-pin Raspberry Pi® connector, and a MIPI video connector. The expansion board can be controlled using protocols such as I2C and SPI.

It also includes an embedded FP5 programmer for FPGA fabric programming and debugging, and firmware application development. More details can be found on the webpage.

The PolarFire SoC Discovery Kit is available for purchase starting at $132 through general retail channels and for $99 through Microchip's academic program.