Two SPI flash in the Nexys A7

[kannan.sasikumar]

Hello

I am using the Nexys A7 development board for a project and in the schematic it is shown as having 2 SPI flash ICs present in it.

I am planning to design a board using the XC7A50T-1CSG324C FPGA and is using the dev board schematic as a reference so i was wondering is the 2 SPI flashes required/necessary or is it added to improve the storage space in the Dev board.

 

Thanks

Kannan

[JColvin]

Hi @kannan.sasikumar,

Both flash chips are not loaded; specifically for IC10 you can see there is a no load label for it (page 8, https://digilent.com/reference/_media/programmable-logic/nexys-a7/nexys-a7-d3-sch.pdf). The primary difference, as I understand it, between the two load options is that there is an option to have a 8-pin or a 16-pin flash component, though I have personally only seen the 16-pin version loaded.

You could ostensibly set up an external connection to a flash chip (similar to how the Pmod SF3 lets users have access to additional flash through I/O pins via a Pmod port), but this is not directly integrated into the board of course.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
JColvin