Thanks for greeting me on your Genode list.
Would you recommend the Zedboard as a low-cost HW/SW codesign
platform?
I opted for a ZedBoard over a microZed / BaseBoard pair...only because of it's more established support eco-system.. That said the MircoZed platform will be a much better selection in the far longer run.
One note about the MicroZed, it's USB connector is currently shipped configured from the factory to be host only...i.e. the Zynq SOC chip's USB to go capabilities apparently require a board level component modification....
ZedBoard has only 512MegaByte of DRAM, as opposed to the MicroZed's 1Gig.
I don't yet know the details... further more the low end Zynq chips on Zed and microZed, do not support multi-gigibit SERDES channels...only up to 950Mbit/sec per LVDS pair.
the Zed board has a fair amount of additional I/O hardware, HDMI output or reversed as an Input) driven via the FPGA ..... so you folks shout be able to move the Genode Nitpicker video logic over quite easily.... that would be great!
But I hear from a
Ed Berdahl that the Audio analog section on the ZedBoard may be a far cry from a hi quality implementation.
you asked:
I wonder in particular if it comes with a license for the
Xilinx ISE+EDK (or however it is called for the Zynq-7000), which is
pretty expensive otherwise?
These days the older ISE+EDK tool kit has been replaced by,
Vivado a major 500+ man year, tool-chain from scratch re-write. that apparently was quite the implementation challenge.. I have only begun to work with it...so I can't tell you much about it from my own experiences as of yet.
The ZedBoard comes with a 1-year 7020 device locked licence certificate for Vivado. The microZed (development kit only, not the OEM modules), come witha 1-year 7010 device locked licence certificate.
you asked:
If not, what is the designated target audience for the board?
The ZedBoard implementation, was Avnet / Digilent's first more cost effective entry point into the Xilix Zync SOC eco-system, many both by them and other's will follow... for example the
Parallella has a Zynq 7010 device on it, but I gather at $99...it does not come with a licence certificate for
Vivado.