Opal Kelly XEM6310-LX45 Compact FPGA Board

The Opal Kelly XEM6310-LX45 is a compact FPGA development module built around the Xilinx Spartan-6 LX45, delivering high-speed prototyping and signal processing capabilities in a 75 mm × 50 mm form factor. It connects via SuperSpeed USB 3.0 with measured throughput exceeding 340 MiB/s, supported by 128 MiB DDR2 SDRAM and dual 16 MiB serial flash memory for configuration and nonvolatile storage. The module provides over 110 user I/O pins across two 80-pin board-to-board connectors, enabling flexible integration into embedded systems and custom hardware acceleration projects.

– Technical Specifications

FPGA Core
• Xilinx Spartan-6 LX45 (XC6SLX45-2FGG484C)
• 43,661 logic cells
• 6,822 slices
• 54,576 D flip-flops
• 401 Kib distributed RAM
• 2,088 Kib block RAM (116 × 18 Kb blocks)
• 58 DSP slices
• 4 clock management tiles
• 2 memory controller blocks

Memory Subsystem
• DDR2 SDRAM: 128 MiB, 16-bit interface, up to 333 MHz clock rate, 10 Gb/s peak bandwidth
• Serial flash: 2 × 16 MiB (Numonyx N25Q128A or compatible)

Interfaces & Connectivity
• USB 3.0 SuperSpeed (Cypress FX3 microcontroller): >340 MiB/s measured performance
• Expansion: Two 80-pin 0.8 mm Samtec connectors with 110+ user I/O pins and 4 GCLK pins
• Clock: 100 MHz low-jitter crystal oscillator with on-chip DCM and PLL support

Physical & Power
• Dimensions: 75 mm × 50 mm × 15.9 mm
• External DC power with high-efficiency switching supplies
• Eight status LEDs

– Key Features

• Self-contained integration platform with onboard DDR2 and dual flash memory
• Direct FPGA access to 110+ user I/O pins for custom hardware integration
• High-bandwidth USB 3.0 configuration and real-time data transfer
• Flexible clocking with DCM/PLL for diverse frequency generation

– Typical Applications

• Signal processing and DSP prototyping
• Custom hardware acceleration
• Embedded systems integration
• Real-time data acquisition and processing

– Compatibility & Integration

Fully supported by Opal Kelly FrontPanel SDK and application, with APIs available for C++, C#, Java, and Python on Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms. Note: Spartan-6 family is end-of-life; migration to Artix-7 or newer architectures is recommended for new designs.