Arty A7

The Digilent Arty A7 is the go-to FPGA development board for engineers learning and prototyping with Xilinx Artix-7 FPGAs. Available in 35T and 100T logic cell variants, it combines a capable FPGA fabric with 256 MB DDR3L memory, 16 MB Quad-SPI flash, Ethernet, and Arduino-compatible shield headers in a compact, affordable platform. Native support for RISC-V soft processors (via Xilinx MicroBlaze or open-source cores) makes it a popular platform for RISC-V development and education. Digilent, an FPGA and SoC board designer since 2000 and now part of National Instruments, offers the Arty A7 as the entry point into their Xilinx ecosystem, which spans Spartan-7, Artix-7, Kintex-7, Virtex-7, Zynq-7000, and Zynq UltraScale+ families.

FPGA Specifications

Feature	Artix-7 35T	Artix-7 100T
Logic Cells	33,280	101,440
Block RAM	1,800 Kb	4,860 Kb
DSP Slices	90	240
Memory	256 MB DDR3L	256 MB DDR3L
Flash	16 MB Quad-SPI	16 MB Quad-SPI
Ethernet	10/100 Mbps	10/100 Mbps
Arduino Headers	Yes	Yes
Pmod Connectors	4	4
USB-JTAG	On-board	On-board
Clock	100 MHz	100 MHz

Arduino shield compatibility opens access to hundreds of existing sensor, actuator, and communication shields, while four Pmod connectors provide expansion with Digilent’s growing ecosystem of add-on modules: sensors, high-speed converters, displays, and adapters for rapid system customization. Full compatibility with Xilinx Vivado Design Suite and Vitis development environment, along with extensive example projects and tutorials, makes the Arty A7 the standard recommendation for university FPGA courses, embedded RISC-V prototyping, and custom digital logic development in both academic and professional settings.

GSAS Micro Systems provides the Arty A7 alongside the full Digilent FPGA portfolio, offering guidance on variant selection (35T vs. 100T), Pmod accessory pairing, and curriculum integration for academic institutions adopting FPGA-based coursework across India.