Zion
Xilinx Zynq MPSoC and Versal based platform designed for mission-critical applications, cloud computing, and advanced analytics with unparalleled scalability.
Reference Hardware Designs
In-house developed hardware platform based on Xilinx Zynq MPSoC/Versal ACAP, with custom carrier boards, programmable logic, and high-speed interfaces. All designs are open source and available on GitHub.
Base Platform
- • Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC / Versal ACAP
- • ARM Cortex-A53/A72 + Cortex-R5F cores
- • Programmable Logic (FPGA fabric)
- • AI Engines (Versal), DSP slices
- • 2GB to 32GB DDR4 RAM
Peripherals & Interfaces
- • High-speed serial: 10G/25G Ethernet, PCIe Gen4
- • Video I/O: DisplayPort, HDMI 2.1
- • CAN FD, USB 3.0, SATA
- • Industrial interfaces: I2C, SPI, UART, GPIO
- • DDR4 memory controllers, NVMe
Operating Systems
Custom PetaLinux/Yocto builds with optimized kernel, FPGA integration, pre-configured drivers, OTA support, and comprehensive SDK. All software is open source on GitHub.
Embedded Linux (Yocto/PetaLinux)
- • Custom Yocto/PetaLinux distribution
- • Linux kernel 5.15+ with Xilinx patches
- • U-Boot/FSBL/PMU firmware
- • Custom BSP for Zynq platforms
- • Device tree for PS and PL integration
- • OTA updates (Mender/OSTree)
- • Diagnostic and profiling tools
Pre-configured Drivers:
GPIO, I2C, SPI, UART, CAN FD, USB, Ethernet (10G), PCIe, SATA, DMA (ZDMA), Video (DisplayPort/HDMI), SD/eMMC, FPGA Manager, AXI DMA, Custom PL IP cores, AI Engine drivers
SDK & Tools:
Vitis/Vivado tools, Vitis AI, PetaLinux tools, Application SDK, ESDK for kernel development, FPGA development tools, Hardware debugging (ChipScope, ILA)
FreeRTOS / Bare-Metal
- • FreeRTOS on ARM Cortex-R5F cores
- • Bare-metal applications on RPU
- • OpenAMP for multi-core communication
- • Resource partitioning (AMP mode)
- • Safety-critical applications support
- • OTA updates (USB/Network based)
Peripheral Drivers:
GPIO, I2C, SPI, UART, CAN, Timer, TTC, Watchdog, AXI DMA, Custom PL interfaces, IPI (Inter-Processor Interrupt)
Middleware:
OpenAMP/RPMsg, Xilinx standalone library, Custom FPGA communication, Power management, Secure storage
Middleware & Frameworks
Communication
- • DDS - High-performance data
- • ROS 2 - Robotics middleware
- • MQTT - IoT messaging
- • gRPC - Microservices
- • DPDK - Fast packet processing
FPGA & Acceleration
- • Vitis AI - ML acceleration
- • SDSoC/Vitis - HW acceleration
- • OpenCL - Parallel computing
- • HLS - High-level synthesis
- • Custom IP cores - FPGA logic
Development
- • Rust - Safe systems programming
- • Docker - Containerization
- • Kubernetes - Orchestration
- • GStreamer - Video pipeline
- • OpenAMP - Multi-core IPC
Application Areas
5G/Wireless Infrastructure
Baseband processing, beamforming, O-RAN, network acceleration, SDR
Aerospace & Defense
Radar systems, signal intelligence, software-defined radio, secure communications
Data Center Acceleration
SmartNICs, video transcoding, encryption, compression, database acceleration
High-Performance Computing
Computational acceleration, AI inference, scientific computing, DSP
Medical Imaging
Ultrasound, CT/MRI reconstruction, real-time processing, image enhancement
Video Processing
Broadcast, encoding/transcoding, video walls, multi-stream processing