Arrow Electronics has launched a competition to find the most innovative and imaginative FPGA-based designs in Europe.

To encourage a wide participation, Arrow is offering a development board free-of-charge to each entrant who submits a verified project plan. Entries will be judged on creativity and implementation and a range of prizes are on offer including an Intel NUC PC, a Realsense Camera and a 512GB Intel SSD.

The first step is to register for entry at the Arrow European FPGA Developer Contest 2019 web page https://www.arrow.com/en/research-and-events/events/european-fpga-developer-contest-2019 and choose from the following Intel FPGA development boards: MAX1000, CYC1000 or AnalogMAX. The flexibility of these boards offers many possibilities, and entries can take many forms. Projects can involve anything from software, special IPs/interfaces and soft cores, to board modifications, adapter creation, adding a PMOD/Arduino, creating an IoT device, and programming algorithms for AI/CNN.

The final deadline for new applications is 31 October 2019.

Once accepted into the contest, the closing date for submitting a project is 15 November 2019. Submission requires the completion of a detailed project description, plus all relevant supporting information. Entrants must also supply the project software to be judged by Arrow’s panel. All software and designs remain the exclusive property of the developer.

“Arrow has been privileged to witness extraordinary creativity in recent years. We believe that there is a wealth of innovative potential out there, and the aim of this contest is to help that to flourish, encouraging great ideas that might otherwise not see the light of day,” said David Spragg, vice president engineering, EMEA, Arrow Electronics.

The European FPGA Developer Contest winners will be notified of their awards and prizes will be despatched before the end of December.