Earlier this month, open-source device maker Raptor Computing Systems previewed an FPGA-based open-source soft BMC product and recently unveiled a new product called the Arctic Tern. As a soft BMC solution, it is designed to replace proprietary baseboard management controllers on servers.
Arctic Tern (BMC Kit | PCIe Carrier)
The official description states that Arctic Tern is a soft BMC FPGA system running Kestrel that allows easy access to existing servers and replaces common ASpeed ASIC functionality with proprietary software.
"It is worth noting that the kit uses the Lattice ECP5 FPGA, which is completely open source and includes HDL firmware and associated tools. Raptor Computing also hopes that Arctic Tern will be well received by users of OpenPOWER / POWER9 hardware running Talos II and Blackbird."
Arctic Tern Module (AT1MB1)
The Arctic Tern hardware runs a completely independent operating system and is fully open source like a firmware solution, or a real-time operating system (RTOS) like Zephyr.
"The AT1MB1 module is a ModBMC-compatible FPGA card, complemented by a Lattice ECP5 FPGA chip + 1GB of DDR3 on-board memory. In addition, the AT1PC2 kit includes the Arctic Tern Module, PCIe carrier card with dual mini-HDMI video outputs + one Gigabit Ethernet port, FSI/JTAG adapter, and cable for connection to Talos II."
For those interested, the fully open source soft BMC solution is available for $1600 (with the open source soft BMC module priced at $900).
