I recently took delivery of a MicroZed I/O Carrier Card, which complements the MicroZed System on Module (SOM) approach by breaking out the numerous I/O ports on the MicroZed board’s two micro connector headers.

The compact size of the MicroZed

The concept behind the MicroZed is that that it allows you to create a system of modules where the same compact MicroZed board can plug into a variety of application-specific carrier cards. When you stop and think about it this approach has a number of benefits:

Reduces Non-Recurring Effort in the development of the product, allowing focus to remain on areas of added value (e.g. an application-specific carrier card, which is simpler and easier to design).

Use of the MicroZed SOM board as a core provides a rapid-development hardware platform that allows the development team to begin very early testing of designs based on the Zynq SoC.

There’s no need to design a custom SoC and perform the subsequent verification, which greatly reduces time to market.

Allows the hardware design effort to be targeted at the application-specific card carrier, which reduces risk.

The MicroZed SOM concept is very flexible because the core MicroZed board breaks out just not the I/O from the programmable logic (PL) side of the Zynq SoC but also from the processor system (PS) side. One really interesting aspect is that the Zynq SoC’s I/O bank voltages are also accessible from the micro-connector headers on the MicroZed board and can therefore be driven by an external card. This enables a carrier card to set the Zynq’s I/O voltages for banks 34, 35 and 13 if you are using the Zynq Z7020 version of the MicroZed. The I/O Carrier Card supplies the I/O voltages required for the application at hand.

The MicroZed is installed on the left side of the I/I Carrier Card

The MicroZed board is also designed so that the board’s 5V power can be supplied from either the USB port or via the carrier card. This is achieved by diode-OR’ing the power supply lines from the MicroZed’s USB port and from the micro header on the MicroZed board.

There are currently three off-the-shelf carrier cards which can be purchased off the shelf from Zedboard.org:

The MicroZed I/O Carrier Card, as shown above. We will be exploring the use of this board over the next few blogs.

A MicroZed Breakout Carrier Card, which provides a bread boarding area for developing prototypes and one-off solutions.

The MicroZed FMC carrier card, which adds a low-pin-count (LPC) FMC interface to the MicroZed.

The I/O Carrier Card I will be experimenting with over the next few blogs comes with 12 PMOD (Digilent Peripheral Module) interfaces, LEDS, switches, and a 100MHZ oscillator used for clocking the PL side of the Zynq. I would like to use the I/O Carrier Card to test out a few concepts I have been demonstrating over the last few blogs. Hopefully my orders will arrive before I sit down to write the next blog.

Please see the previous entries in this MicroZed series by Adam Taylor:

Zynq DMA Part Two – Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 29

The Zynq PS/PL, Part Eight: Zynq DMA – Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 28

The Zynq PS/PL, Part Seven: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 27

The Zynq PS/PL, Part Six: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 26

The Zynq PS/PL, Part Five: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 25

The Zynq PS/PL, Part Four: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 24

The Zynq PS/PL, Part Three: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 23

The Zynq PS/PL, Part Two: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 22

The Zynq PS/PL, Part One: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 21

Introduction to the Zynq Triple Timer Counter Part Four: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 20

Introduction to the Zynq Triple Timer Counter Part Three: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 19

Introduction to the Zynq Triple Timer Counter Part Two: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 18

Introduction to the Zynq Triple Timer Counter Part One: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 17

The Zynq SoC’s Private Watchdog: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 16

Implementing the Zynq SoC’s Private Timer: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 15

MicroZed Timers, Clocks and Watchdogs: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 14

More About MicroZed Interrupts: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 13

MicroZed Interrupts: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 12

Using the MicroZed Button for Input: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 11

Driving the Zynq SoC's GPIO: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 10

Meet the Zynq MIO: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 9

MicroZed XADC Software: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 8

Getting the XADC Running on the MicroZed: Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles Part 7

A Boot Loader for MicroZed. Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles, Part 6

Figuring out the MicroZed Boot Loader – Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles, Part 5

Running your programs on the MicroZed – Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles, Part 4

Zynq and MicroZed say “Hello World”-- Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles, Part 3

Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles: Setting the SW Scene

Bringing up the Avnet MicroZed with Vivado