Crowdfunding Project——Tiliqua

Tiliqua is a powerful and hackable FPGA-based Eurorack multifunction tool. By using Tiliqua, people of varying technical skill levels can engage in FPGA-based audio and video synthesis. The Tiliqua hardware architecture, combined with a comprehensive collection of example projects built using Python (Amaranth HDL), allows users to experiment with synthesis techniques that are difficult to achieve on conventional embedded microcontroller platforms, such as extreme oversampling for alias-free audio-rate modulation, low-latency effects, video synthesis, and high-speed USB audio.

No PC Needed

Tiliqua requires no complex setup, truly offering a plug-and-play experience. It can store up to 8 projects (bitstreams) simultaneously and allows users to switch between them on the fly. Depending on different needs, it can be:

• A video synthesizer (vectorscope display with audio-rate beam modulation)
• A multichannel wavetable oscillator (1 MHz oversampling for audio-rate FM)
• A high-speed 4 in/4 out USB 2.0 audio interface
• A polyphonic MIDI/touch synthesizer
• A multichannel diffusion delay
• A multichannel pitch shifter
• A MIDI/CV converter
• A matrix mixer

Besides, the designers are planning to develop more functions.

Features & Specifications

Tiliqua is based on a modular design. The FPGA core (an integrated system module in M.2 form factor) can be removed and embedded into user projects, and the audio interface can be decoupled and connected to other FPGA development platforms. The key components in Tiliqua include:

Audio Interface

• 8 (4 in + 4 out) DC-coupled audio channels, 192 KHz / 24-bit sampling supported
• Touch and proximity sensing on all 8 audio jacks (if unused)
• PWM-controlled, user-programmable red/green LEDs on each audio channel
• Jack insertion detection on all 8 jacks

Motherboard

• Switched rotary encoder with bar graph display.
• Dual USB ports:

dbg: Included RP2040-based JTAG debugger supported by openFPGAloader

usb2: USB PHY connected directly to FPGA for high-speed USB Audio support

• Display output for video synthesis (maximum resolution 720/60P)
• 2x expansion ports for up to 24 simultaneous audio channels (PMOD-compatible)
• MIDI-In jack (TRS-A standard)

Embedded FPGA SoM

• Lattice ECP5 (25 K) FPGA, supported by open-source FPGA toolchains
• 128 Mbit (16 MByte) HyperRAM / oSPI RAM (for long audio buffers or video framebuffers)
• 128 Mbit (16 MByte) SPI flash for user bitstreams
• High-speed USB HS PHY (ULPI)

Expansion

• Extra audio sections for up to 24 simultaneous audio channels (1 internal + 2 external audio sections = 3 * 8 channels)
• Existing boards from the PMOD ecosystem, like LED panel drivers, SD card readers, and so on
• Anything that uses 3.3 V logic levels for communication

This project is going to crowdfund on CrowdSupply, check Tiliqua for more info and welcome to support it if you are interested,