AMD has launched the VEK385 Evaluation Kit featuring the Versal AI Edge Gen 2 XC2VE3858 SoC FPGA, which includes eight Cortex-A78AE cores, ten Cortex-R52 cores, FPGA fabric with 543,104 LUTs, 144 AI Engine-ML v2 tiles (up to 184 INT8 TOPS), 2,064 DSPs, a Mali-G78AE GPU, and an integrated ISP.
The kit is equipped with 20 GB of LPDDR5X memory, a PCIe x8 edge connector supporting Gen5 x4 and Gen3/4 x8, and two HDMI 2.1 RX/TX ports for video. It also includes an SFP28 port for 25–100 Gb/s Ethernet, plus CAN-FD and PL/PS Ethernet for deterministic control applications. The board is intended to expedite prototyping for automotive (ADAS, autonomous driving), industrial (AMR, edge AI boxes), healthcare (ultrasound, endoscopy, 3D imaging), and aerospace-grade systems.
VEK385 Evaluation Kit specifications
- Adaptive SoC – AMD Versal AI Edge Series Gen 2 XC2VE3858-2MSESSVA2112 heterogeneous adaptive SoC
- CPU – 8x Arm Cortex-A78AE application cores
- Real-time – 10x Arm Cortex-R52 real-time cores
- GPU – 4-core Arm Mali-G78AE
- AI & DSP – 144x AI Engine-ML v2 Tiles (up to 184 INT8 Dense TOPS), 2,064 DSP Engines
- FPGA Fabric – 1,188K System Logic Cells, 543,104 LUTs
- Video – 1x Video Codec Unit (VCU) Tile (supports H.264/H.265)
- ISP – 3x Image Signal Processor (ISP) Tiles
- System controller – AMD Kria K24 Zynq Ultrascale+ system-on-module(SoM)
- System Memory – 20 GB 160-bit LPDDR5X memory (5x 4 GB, 32-bit, soldered)
- Storage
- M.2 M-Key Gen5 (NGFF mini card) socket
- 64 GB UFS storage
- OSPI flash and MicroSD card support
- Display
- HDMI 2.1 output
- DisplayPort 1.4 (via USB-C)
- Video Input – 1x HDMI 2.1 input
- Networking
- 1x QSFP28 (100Gbps) cage
- 1x SFP28 (25Gbps) cage
- 3x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports (2x PL, 1x PS)
- 1x RJ45 for System Controller
- 3x 100Gbps Multirate Ethernet MACs (internal)
- USB
- 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 Type-C port with DisplayPort 1.4 Alt mode
- 1x USB 3.0 Type-A port
- 2x USB 2.0 Type-A ports
- 1x USB Type-C port for JTAG/UART bridge
- Serial – 4x CAN-FD interfaces via green terminal blocks
- Debugging – PC4 JTAG header, UART via USB Type-C port
- Expansion
- PCIe Gen5 x4 / Gen4 x8 edge connector (Endpoint and Root Port support)
- VITA 57.4 FMC+ connector (4x GTYP trans