The XLR8 development board from Alorium Technology, available now from Mouser Electronics, is an Arduino-compatible board that differs from an Altera MAX 10 FPGA in its core processing chip. The FPGA implements an ATmega328-compatible microcontroller core and allows developers to implement custom logic such as Xcelerator Blocks (XBS), which can be integrated into the reconfigurable FPGA and connected directly to the processor. The XLR8's FPGA-based hardware acceleration results in a significant performance improvement in the same physical footprint, using the same toolchain as standard Arduino Uno boards. Sketches designed for Arduino-compatible boards can also be run on the XLR8, so developers can upload code directly to the XLR8 via the Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and using Arduino-compatible shields.
The XLR8 board includes libraries for the Arduino IDE that, using XBs, make its use as simple as adding a single include instruction to an Arduino sketch. With XBs, developers can execute the same function in a fraction of the clock cycles required to run it in software. With shorter times to complete complex tasks in hardware, the XLR8 frees up more clock cycles for additional software functions, leading to faster calculations and improved overall application performance.
