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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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8 years ago

Need help identifying an FPGA board.

Its a Microsoft board with Altera Stratix v fpga. Any info or specs that anyone could help me with would be appreciated. Im wanting to learn fpga's with this and atemp a personal project with it.thankshttps://alteraforum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=15238&stc=1 https://alteraforum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=15239&stc=1 https://alteraforum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=15239&stc=1

7 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    8 years ago

    Where did you get it from? Afaik, Microsoft arnt in the habit of making board like this, so is it not made by someone else?

    You'll need to give us some more identifying features. But if it isnt a dev board, then you're unlikely to find the necessary resources, like schematics, that will be needed for pinout and pin constraints.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    8 years ago

    --- Quote Start ---

    Where did you get it from? Afaik, Microsoft arnt in the habit of making board like this, so is it not made by someone else?

    You'll need to give us some more identifying features. But if it isnt a dev board, then you're unlikely to find the necessary resources, like schematics, that will be needed for pinout and pin constraints.

    --- Quote End ---

    I got it off ebay. It was just advertised as a Stratix v development board. It has Microsoft printed on the board
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    8 years ago

    Looks like it might be one of these:

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-catapult/

    From the little reading Ive done, it's a propietary board used in the microsoft data centres, that academics can use to accelerate their work. You will likely need to apply to here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/academic-program/project-catapult-academic-program/ to have any chance of using the board yourself.

    I suspect you wont get very far trying to use this board for your own purposes. I hope you didnt pay a lot for it (Statix V dev cards of this spec are ususally about $6000-7000)
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    8 years ago

    Yes I believe that is it. I just read a little on it and it definitely does sound proprietary. I'm not sure if I will even be able to get to try it out. I didn't pay nearly 5 or 6k for it thankfully. I really really do hope I can get to use it somehow. I guess I'll have to contact the project catapult team and find out.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    8 years ago

    If I'm not able to use this board would the fpga chip be able to be recovered for use on another board? I guess that would be my next question

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    8 years ago

    I Unlikely you can re-use the chip. Its a BGA so unless you have the means to remove it without damaging the chip and re-create the solder balls for 1000 pins, it'll pretty useless.

    Be prepared for the fact that you've probably bought a lemon.

    What are you actually trying to do? This card is designed to move a lot of data around - 16x PCIe, 2x 10G SFP. Not really a card for learning FPGAs with, this is pretty experienced stuff.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    8 years ago

    I think you could have the FPGA removed and balls re-applied by any competent PCB assembly house. It would likely cost several hundred $$ though.