Shortage of components :-(

It is clear that, although the economy has supposedly recovered, the availability of certain components is still uncertain. As for those that are available again, prices have increased significantly.

This is the case with FPGAs. However, for particular creations, I appreciate the use of FPGAs. I intend to develop my Drumulator clone with this type of circuits. 

And, suddenly, I'm not really sure I can get the modules that I use. So I decided to make an FPGA module myself with a circuit made in China by Gowin.

For now, the goal is to create a test module that can allow me to discover these new circuits. They are not really comparable to Altera (Intel) or Xilinx circuits. They offer less possibility, a priori, but should perfectly suit my basic applications which do not require large resources.

So I chose to use the GW1N-LV4-LQ144 component. It offers 4608 LUTs, 180Kb (22.5 KB) of BSRAM and 256Kb (32KB) of FLASH. I think this should be enough for a minimal Z80 system implementation like that of the Drumulator.

But, to be clear, I'm not sure of anything at the moment... So, as I like to experiment, I developed a small module-type board which, if my tests are conclusive, can be used for a few applications:

Front

Back

The board seems more 'simple' than what we are used to seeing with classic FPGAs. It is precisely that Gowin circuits allow this simplicity. And I like it when it's simple ;-)

I still have the silkscreen to be placed correctly and I will have some printed circuits made.

That's good, I received a Gowin programming dongle this morning:

Let's go for adventure ;-)