Genesys ZU Vs Xilinx ZCU102 - Differnences

[Aidanw]

Hello, a question that's probably aimed directly at an FAE or equivalent engineer for Digilent. 

At the moment we’re using Xilinx ZCU102 boards. Digilent GenesysZU FPGAs are significantly cheaper and use an FPGA from the same Ultrascale+ family as the ZCU102 board.

But we have some technical queries in evaluating the compatibility and as an alternative to the Xilinx ZCU102 boards. FMC pinouts, SD card booting, etc.  I’d like to be put it touch with an applications engineer if possible.

We’re struggling with support on the Xilinx side with ZCU102 hardware issues in the hope of repairing a board. So much so that we're considering switching supplier. Does digilent offer repair services or recommend a 3rd party for repair services? 

Thanks

Aidan 

[JColvin]

Hi @Aidanw,

Digilent doesn't offer repair services for our products; this is mostly because the cost of getting a product shipped, evaluated, repaired, retested, and shipped back usually ends up costing more than just sending a new board, though I'm not sure if that line is crossed with the Genesys ZU board. If the board is outside of our warranty (https://digilent.com/shop/shipping-returns/#warranty), we will try to help offer some troubleshooting and insight as to what particular component might be malfunctioning with our boards here on the Forum though.

I haven't looked too much at the ZCU102 to be able offer an extensive list of the differences between the boards, though I can see that the ZCU102 uses a 9EG which has quite a bit more resources than either the Genesys ZU 3EG or 5EV; higher speed grade, more I/O, logic, RAM, two sets of HPC FMC rather than just one LPC FMC, 4 SFP+ Cages instead of 1, etc.

As for the technical questions, I will likely be the person answering them. I'm not certain what specific questions you have, but I figure the most useful resources I can offer right now would be the Resource Center, https://digilent.com/reference/programmable-logic/genesys-zu/start, and the Reference Manual in particular the Features and Low-pin count FMC sections.

Thanks,
JColvin