Introduction to the AXC3000

Overview

The AXC3000 board is made by Trenz Electronics and has a mid scale Agilex 3 FPGA with:

- Agilex™ 3 - A3CY100BM16AE7S (M16A) with 100kLE, 138 DSP blocks, 276 multipliers 18x19, 1.90 Peak INT8 (TOPS), 4.47 Mb internal memory, MIPI D-PHY interface, LVDS pairs at 1.250 Mbps, Secure Device Manager, HyperRAM: 128 Mbit, QSPI Config Flash: 256 Mbit, 3-axis accelerometer, RGB LED, Push button and DIP switches, CRUVI HS connector, Arduino MKR standard pads (user IOs), On-board Programmer/Debugger, 5V Power via USB

Agilex 3

Is the latest offering from Altera. The DSP block has a new addition, AI Tensor block. This specialized block provides significant throughput for INT8 operations, making it ideal for efficient neural network inference.

Tools

Quartus Prime Pro Edition, the official development environment from Intel, can be used free of charge with the AXC3000. Users must register for a free, device-specific license to enable full functionality, including synthesis and on-board debugging.

CRUVI

standard. This open-source standard is gaining traction, with many compatible expansion boards available on the market. For instance, a reference design on GitHub demonstrates connecting a high-speed camera via the CRUVI connector. A variety of breakout boards are also available to facilitate custom connection, the official development environment from Intel, can be used free of charge with the AXC3000. Users must register for a free, device-specific license to enable full functionality.

High speed interconnect

The board features a versatile high-speed interconnection system utilizing the CRUVI standard. CRUVI (Connectors for Universal Vision and IO) is an open-source standard designed for high-bandwidth peripherals like cameras. Many compatible expansion boards and breakout boards are available to simplify integration.

Projects

Arrow Electronics has provided a GitHub repository containing workshop materials and several project examples (linked below). Another project resource also includes extensive technical documentation on the board, such as block diagrams, a detailed parts list, and the full schematic.