Icezum Alhambra

Arduino/zum compatible Open FPGA electronic board. Synthesize hardware easily, using only open source tools

Features

2015-12-20: The icezum board was conceived in the BQlabs, the robotics and innovation department at BQ. The idea was to have a very easy to use FPGA board, fully openhardware, similar to Arduino/ZUM boards, so that anyone can connect sensors and create robots or small projects using an FPGA instead of a processor. We wanted to extend the educational approach of BQ to the digital circuits design. At that time, Juan Gonzalez (Obijuan) was the head of the department. Eladio Delgado, a very-skilled senior external engineer was assigned the task of designing the board. He was already involve in other projects with BQ
2016-02-18: The icezum board bqlabs repo at github is created and all the V1.0 files released
2016-02-29: The board was renamed to Icezum Alhambra because Eladio lives in a small town in Granada. The name was suggested by Sebastián Gallardo in this post in the FPGAwars community (In Spanish)
2016-03-05: The first prototype is built and a bitstream is successfully upload into the board! Images 10 PCBs were manufactured in total. 5 Prototypes were mounted (by hand) by Eladio and his sister María. 5 more were mounted one mounth later
2016-04-14: BQlabs was disolved and this proyect was stopped. Many thanks to BQ for all its help during this period. Thanks for sponsoring the Icezum board

2016-04-20: The project is continued by the FPGAwars community, lead by Obijuan. The FPGAwars github organization) is created and all the repositories related to openfpgas are moved there
2016-05-01: A Small local crowdfunding is organized in the FPGAwars community (Original message, in spanish). Only 100 V1.1 boards will be manufactured if an amount of 6500€ is raised
2016/05/18: After two weeks, we already have the commitment of the people for paying the money for building the boards (Board funded!)
2016/05/30: The icezum Alhambra is being migrated to Kicad by Juan Gonzalez (Obijuan). Also the 3D models were designed with FreeCAD, so that the Icezum Alhambra is not only an openhardware board, but also a board designed with opensource tools. This way, anyone in the world can easily have access to all the designs, to study them, modify them and creating new boards from them. This version will be called V1.0K (K stands for kicad). It is not going to be manufactured, but rather a starting point for the future versions
2016/07/03: All the money (6500€ in total) is received from the backers! Thanks a lot!!! (Backers list)
2016/07/28: V1.0K is released!

2016/04/20: In paralell with the V1.0K version, Eladio started to work on the V1.1, which is the one that will be manufactured for the backers. As there were still no Kicad version when Eladio started, It is being designed in Altium and will be migrated later to Kicad as the V1.1K version
2016/09/22: Three Icezum Alhambra V1.1-RC1 are hand mounted and tested. They work ok!. The PCBs were manufactured in pcbway. The design is validated
2016/10/03: Icezum Alhambra v1.1-RC1 is released

TODO

V1.0: Eladio Delgado Mingorance. Sponsored by BQ
V1.0K: Migrated to Kicad by Juan González (Obijuan). 3D models designed with FreeCAD. Everything is generated using only opensource tools (schematics, pcb, 3D models, pinout, BOM...). This version belongs to our Technological Heritage
V1.1: Eladio Delgado Mingorance, from Pinos del Valle, Granada, Spain

BQ. Thanks for funding this project from 2015-12-20 to 2016-04-14. During this period, the icezum V1.0 was born and 10 prototypes were manufactured.
María Delgado Mingorance, for helping in the manufacturing and design of the V1.0
V1.0 was derived from the Arduino Uno board
V1.0 was derived from the zum core board by BQ
V1.0 was derived from the Icestick by Lattice
V1.0K was derived from Icezum Alhambra V1.0 by BQ
V1.1 was derived from Icezum Alhambra V1.0 by BQ
Icestorm project, by Clifford Wolf and Mathias Lasser
Icezum Pinout, by Alberto Piganti
Jairo Zerberos. Migration of the FT2232H schematic symbol from altium to kicad. Thanks!
altium2kicad. Tool used for the migration from Altium to Kicad. Many thanks to the developers!
Kicadstepup. Tool for exporting the board to FreeCAD
Alhambra festival picture, by Cristina Urdiales. Thanks for this beautiful paiting!
Juan González (Obijuan): V1.0 specifications. Migration to Kicad (V1.0K)

Many thanks to BQ, for funding the initial prototype V1.0, during the period 2015-12-20 to 2016-04-14. Thanks a lot for increasing our technological heritage by sponsoring openhardware boards.