Microchip Polarfire SoC series - #2 Basic design

Written by Super User on 09 April 2025.

Welcome to the blog post number 2 in the Microchip PolarFire SoC series! Today, we’re creating a basic design for the PolarFire SoC video kit from scratch. While in the previous blog post we’ve seen how to build the reference design, it is important to be able to create a design from scratch. Until you do, you might miss some important details.

We’re going to create a custom MSS configuration and an FPGA design with two GPIO banks connected to the LEDs and dip switches on the video kit.

We’re going to add support for the GPIO banks to the Linux kernel, and write some examples in Python for testing.

I assume you’ve read the first blog post of the Microchip Polarfire SoC series since I did explain about how to install the tools, build the HSS firmware, Yocto image, etc.

Full disclaimer: this video is not sponsored by Microchip and the video kit has been bought by Starware Design.

Project tray system

Written by Super User on 23 August 2025.

Working as an embedded systems consultant, I have to quickly switch between projects or sometimes between different boards for the same project or client.

When I was looking for inspiration on how to set up my workbench, I found this blog post from Jay Carlson about the project tray system.

https://jaycarlson.net/2021/09/18/juggle-embedded-projects-home-office-workspace-tour/

Jay uses lunch trays for the design under development, plus a USB hub, cables, etc.

I really liked the idea, but I wanted to improve it regarding:

• How to secure the device under development, USB hub, etc to the tray
• and Use one set of cables to connect to the tray

So I came up with my own version of the project tray system.

I am going to use a Zedboard with an FMC board and a camera as an example throughout the video.