The Cubic Board was a 2015 project to make a compact, reusable FPGA module that brought together a Cyclone chip, memory, and interfaces, with carrier boards adding user-facing controls and connections. Its second revision became a Cyclone V SoC module with dual ARM Cortex-A9 cores. “Open source” described project hardware and software artifacts—not the proprietary FPGA design tool, Quartus II. The project’s account is historical; it does not establish that boards are available today.
What was the Cubic Board?
In a 2015 first-person account for EE Times, project lead and coordinator Richard Price described the Cubic Board as a compact module for developers who needed FPGA logic and bandwidth, rather than a conventional classroom evaluation board. “Cubic” stood for “Compact Cyclone Core,” abbreviated C³. The original board used an Altera Cyclone IV E FPGA.
The design separated the reusable computing module from the carrier hardware around it. The first board was described as a two-inch-square module with essential subsystems such as DDR memory, but without onboard buttons, ports, or LEDs. The idea was to keep the core compact and let baseboards supply convenient ways to connect and interact with it. These hardware details are Price’s account, not independently verified specifications. Read Price’s 2015 EE Times account.
How did the second revision differ?
After demonstrating the first board at a Maker Faire, the team used feedback to develop a second revision called the Cubic SoC Board. Price’s account says it replaced the Cyclone IV E FPGA with a Cyclone V SoC device, which combined FPGA fabric with dual hard ARM Cortex-A9 processor cores. It also describes an integrated DDR memory controller and multi-gigabit transceiver channels.
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| Revision | Device | Physical design described in the 2015 account |
|---|---|---|
| Original Cubic Board | Altera Cyclone IV E FPGA | Two-inch-square module; fine-pitch connectors on three sides |
| Cubic SoC Board (Rev 2) | Cyclone V SoC with dual ARM Cortex-A9 hard processor cores | 70 mm by 33 mm, with a single edge connector |
The revisions reflect a change from an FPGA-centered module to a system-on-chip FPGA module with onboard hard processor cores. The source describes the features but does not provide independently measured performance or a verified comparison with other development boards.
Why use a module and separate baseboards?
The team’s approach was to put difficult-to-integrate subsystems on a small reusable module, then use a carrier board when a project needed more connections or controls. Price’s account says the module integrated LPDDR2 memory and USB interfaces, which the contributors viewed as challenging for users to design and debug themselves.
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The article describes two baseboards:
- A larger demonstration and evaluation-style board with switches, connectors, and LEDs.
- A smaller board intended to provide a single-USB connection and FPGA reconfiguration.
That arrangement offered a way to keep the core module small without giving up the convenience of a more accessible development setup. The account does not include a verified schematic or current official datasheet, so treat the implementation details as historical descriptions rather than a basis for present-day hardware integration.
What software and tools did it use?
For the original board, contributor Chris Rauer is credited with porting Linux to run using Altera’s NIOS soft-core processor and writing a Python library for GPIO. For Rev 2, the account reports embedded Linux, drivers, and demo programs. It also describes a prepared virtual machine intended to make a complicated development environment easier to set up.
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The FPGA workflow used Quartus II to program the fabric, while Altera EDS supported software development. Price’s article does not say that Quartus II was open source. In the article’s comment thread, a commenter identified as Iceworld clarified that the project’s open-source software claim referred to board software—such as drivers, demos, and project templates—not to an open-source version of Quartus. A project can share hardware files or software while still depending on proprietary tools; those are separate questions.
What did “open source” mean in this project?
The article presents the Cubic project as an open-source design reference and describes software contributions, but the available account does not establish exact hardware or software license terms. It also does not establish that every part of the design or development toolchain was open. In particular, the discussion distinguishes project software and artifacts from Quartus II, the FPGA design tool.
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Price said that contributors who worked or had worked for Altera did so independently of company sponsorship: “Even though we all work (or worked) for Altera at some point, this was not a project sponsored by the company.” The account says Bo Zhou conceived the original board after Altera makers gathered around a 2014 Maker Faire booth; it credits Price as project lead/coordinator, Rauer with embedded software, and names Duy Pham, Evan Custodio, and Lichao Li among contributors.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Who was the project meant for?
The intended users were hardware and software developers who wanted a reusable FPGA or SoC module, and product developers looking to avoid rebuilding memory and USB subsystems. The project team cited signal processing, bandwidth, parallel scalability, and compactness as motivations. These are design goals, not evidence of measured superiority over Arduino, Raspberry Pi, or other FPGA boards.
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Can you buy a Cubic Board now?
The 2015 article positioned the project as a design reference and invited businesses interested in manufacturing and selling Cubic boards to contact the project website. It projected a retail price below $200 for the Cubic SoC module. A commenter identified as Iceworld later mentioned a possible core-module price below $100 if production reached sufficient volume. Both were historical projections, not confirmed sales or current offers.
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No clearly attributable current project page or retailer was verified in the current-status search, which does not prove that the project files or hardware no longer exist. The available evidence does not establish present-day stock, manufacturing, or a live official repository. Before relying on a listing, verify the board revision, seller, and official project or licensing details; do not treat the 2015 price estimates as today’s prices.
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