Show HN: Icepi Zero – The FPGA Raspberry Pi Zero Equivalent • Hacker News Board

Show HN: Icepi Zero – The FPGA Raspberry Pi Zero Equivalent

#1

Post by Cyao » Wed, May 28, 2025, 1:31 PM UTC

I've been hacking away lately, and I'm now proud to show off my newest project - The Icepi Zero!

In case you don't know what an FPGA is, this phrase summarizes it perfectly: "FPGAs work like this. You don't tell them what to do, you tell them what to BE." You don't program them, but you rewrite the circuits they contain!

So I've made a PCB that carries an ECP5 FPGA, and has a raspberry pi zero footprint. It also has a few improvements! Notably the 2 USB b ports are replaced with 3 USB C ports, and it has multiple LEDs.

This board can output HDMI, read from a uSD, use a SDRAM and much more. I'm very proud the product of multiple weeks of work. (Thanks for the pcb reviews on r/PrintedCircuitBoard )

(All the sources on github under an open source license :D)

PS. See some more pics on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/FPGA/comments/1kwxvk8/ive_made_my_f...

Show HN: Icepi Zero – The FPGA Raspberry Pi Zero Equivalent
github.com

Re: Show HN: Icepi Zero – The FPGA Raspberry Pi Zero Equivalent

#2

Post by aappleby » Fri, May 30, 2025, 9:07 PM UTC

Take my money already. :D

Re: Show HN: Icepi Zero – The FPGA Raspberry Pi Zero Equivalent

#3

Post by NoOn3 » Fri, May 30, 2025, 9:19 PM UTC

Another project like FPGA in "Pi Zero" format was fleaFPGA_Ohm (http://fleasystems.com/fleaFPGA_Ohm.html).

Re: Show HN: Icepi Zero – The FPGA Raspberry Pi Zero Equivalent

#4

Post by teamonkey » Fri, May 30, 2025, 9:25 PM UTC

No crowdsupply?

Re: Show HN: Icepi Zero – The FPGA Raspberry Pi Zero Equivalent

#5

Post by deivid » Fri, May 30, 2025, 9:26 PM UTC

Can you sell these assembled? Using Tang nano for learning right now, but the tooling and docs situation is not great

Re: Show HN: Icepi Zero – The FPGA Raspberry Pi Zero Equivalent

#6

Post by Graziano_M » Fri, May 30, 2025, 9:40 PM UTC

deivid wrote: post #5

Can you sell these assembled? Using Tang nano for learning right now, but the tooling and docs situation is not great

The icebreaker is great and easy to get up and running, plus it has pmod headers which makes it easy to add add-ons.

Re: Show HN: Icepi Zero – The FPGA Raspberry Pi Zero Equivalent

#7

Post by duskwuff » Fri, May 30, 2025, 9:54 PM UTC

Graziano_M wrote: post #6

deivid wrote: post #5

Can you sell these assembled? Using Tang nano for learning right now, but the tooling and docs situation is not great

The icebreaker is great and easy to get up and running, plus it has pmod headers which makes it easy to add add-ons.

Yep, and I love it. That's a much smaller (and lower pin count) FPGA than this ECP5, though.

Re: Show HN: Icepi Zero – The FPGA Raspberry Pi Zero Equivalent

#8

Post by duskwuff » Fri, May 30, 2025, 9:55 PM UTC

NoOn3 wrote: post #3

Another project like FPGA in "Pi Zero" format was fleaFPGA_Ohm ( http://fleasystems.com/fleaFPGA_Ohm.html ).

Yep - unfortunately, that never appears to have been available for purchase outside the Indiegogo campaign.

Re: Show HN: Icepi Zero – The FPGA Raspberry Pi Zero Equivalent

#9

Post by Cyao » Fri, May 30, 2025, 10:03 PM UTC

teamonkey wrote: post #4

No crowdsupply?

After the amount of emails i got asking if i sell the boards, I just applied to crowdsupply :P

Re: Show HN: Icepi Zero – The FPGA Raspberry Pi Zero Equivalent

#10

Post by lukevp » Fri, May 30, 2025, 10:45 PM UTC

Cyao wrote: post #9

teamonkey wrote: post #4

No crowdsupply?

After the amount of emails i got asking if i sell the boards, I just applied to crowdsupply :P

I have no idea about this product category but am interested in learning more about FPGAs. What is the ballpark price point that something like this would be? Are we talking $100 or $1000?