Can PYNQ-Z2 support an external ADC?

Support
1

Hi all,

I’m a begginer on FPGAs but I’d like to know if PYNQ-Z2 can have a higher rate ADC connected. I’ve read the internal ADC is a 1 MSPS rate but I would like to use it as a small spectrometer with a wider instant bandwidth. If that is possible, could you please recommend some compatible ADC’s?

Thanks in advance.

2

Yes, you can use external ADCs, but Pmod, Arduino, RPi are relatively low speed interfaces, so you will be limited by this.
I may be wrong, but I don’t think Pmod ADCs will run much faster than 1Msps depending on the resolution.
It may be technically possible to build some custom boards to make a faster ADC or maybe interleave 2 or more ADCs across all available I/O, but I don’t think you will find off-the-shelf components to do this.

Cathal

3

Oh I see. Thank you Cathal!