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Fomu An FPGA board that fits inside your USB port

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Why This Matters

Fomu is a compact, open-source FPGA device that fits inside a USB port, making FPGA and RISC-V development more accessible and portable. Its compatibility with Python and open toolchains lowers the barrier to entry for developers and students alike. This innovation could accelerate embedded systems development and promote wider adoption of FPGA and RISC-V architectures in the tech industry.

Key Takeaways

Fomu is the easiest way to get started with FPGA or RISC-V development.

Fomu is a programmable FPGA device that fits inside a USB port. It has four buttons, an RGB LED, and an FPGA that is compatible with a fully open source chain and capable of running a RISC-V core. Fomu comes in a custom plastic enclosure that slots perfectly into a USB Type-A port.

Python, RISC-V, FPGA, All Open

Fomu has Python

With 128 kilobytes of RAM and a large amount of storage, Fomu is powerful enough to run Python natively. And since it lives in your USB port, installation is super simple. FPGAs are complicated, but the latest Python tools make it easy to use Fomu without any specialized training.

Fomu runs RISC-V

Underneath the Python interpreter lies a RISC-V softcore running on the FPGA fabric. RISC-V is an up-and-coming processor architecture that is poised to take over everything from deeply-embedded chips to high-performance computing. Fomu’s RISC-V softcore is a great introduction to the processor architecture of the future.

Fomu is an FPGA

An FPGA is a piece of reconfigurable silicon. The default Fomu firmware exposes a USB bootloader running a RISC-V softcore, but you can load whatever you want. Softcores are also available for LM32 and OpenRISC. You can practice adding instructions to the CPU, or add new blocks such as LED blink patterns or better captouch hardware blocks.

Fomu is entirely open

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