Fomu An FPGA board that fits inside your USB port

Apparently there is a newer Qomu device that combines the FPGA and an MCU: https://www.crowdsupply.com/quicklogic/qomu

But is it fast enough to do USB 3?

If so, here's a nice and simple project idea: that board with two USB connectors and connect it to the two ends of the same cable; you send a pseudorandom bitstream down one end and verify if it comes out correctly at the other end and report the bit error rate (USB cable tester)

Its a cool board! Second submission on it ~7 years ago got a tiny bit of traction. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19488397

There's a fun/interesting lesson on some creative routing for the ice40 FPGA FPGA here. Which I re-stumbled into just last week by happenstance. https://danielmangum.com/posts/spi-routing-ice40-fpga/

One of the makers Tim @mithro Ansell is pretty great. A bit quieter on the social media these days, but https://bsky.app/profile/mith.ro