Genesys ZU Reference Manual
TL;DR
The black matte board you are holding in your hand is a prototyping and evaluation board proudly
designed by Digilent. At its heart is a Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC ARM‐FPGA hybrid, coupled with
upgradeable memory, network and multimedia interfaces, and a wide variety of expansion connectors
making it a versatile computing platform.
Available in two variants, 3EG and 5EV, differentiated by the MPSoC model and some peripherals. If the
fan sticker says 5EV, on top of 3EG you get slightly faster DDR4, more FPGA, video codec and GTH
transceivers allowing HDMI Source, Sink and SFP+ 10G.
Used stand‐alone with a hearty bundle in the box, powered by the 12V power supply, it straight up
boots Linux from the microSD card. Connect the USB micro B cable to a PC and open a terminal (115200‐
8‐N‐1) to the first COM port out of the two that appear. Login and password are both "root". The red
button labeled "POR" always resets the MPSoC and starts the boot process again.
Want to dive deep into development? Head over to our GitHub page and use the repos there as a
starting point. Build your own boot image on the SD card and boot it like the OOB demo. Not enough?
Connecting the JTAG‐HS1/HS2 cable to header J28 will allow for on‐the‐fly programming and debug
using Xilinx Vivado and SDK.
The Digilent Genesys ZU is a stand‐alone Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC prototyping and development board.
It is an advanced computing platform with powerful multimedia and network connectivity interfaces.
The excellent mix of on‐board peripherals, upgrade‐friendly DDR4, Mini PCIe and microSD slots, multi‐
camera and high‐speed expansion connectors are bound to support a wide number of use‐cases.
Furthermore, the Genesys ZU is available in two variants with different MPSoC options and additional
features for even more flexibility. Differences are highlighted* throughout this document.
The Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC at the heart of the Genesys ZU is a big leap from the Zynq‐7000
series. Faster and more processor cores, upgraded memory interface, integrated gigabit transceivers
bring support for DDR4, USB Type‐C 3.1, PCIe, SATA, DisplayPort, SFP+* and HDMI*. The Genesys ZU is
primarily targeted towards Linux‐based applications that allows easy access to Wi‐Fi, cellular radio
(WWAN), SSD, USB SuperSpeed and 4K video. The bundled microSD card includes an out‐of‐box demo
that boots a Linux image built in Petalinux and includes some test scripts for some of the peripherals.
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