BeMicro FPGA-based MCU Evaluation Board

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Hi I was wondering if anyone here that's been using their bemicro has made any use of the 80 pin edge connector? Would you know of an 80 pin connector that would slip onto the end of the bemicro from which I could run wires from? I would like to run pwr and assorted inputs to the brd through this connector and run control signals out. Thanks... Mike

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I've made a couple of boards for the BeMicro - a simple I2C adapter with onboard EEPROM and buffer, and a more complex board with optically isolated ADC's and digital I/O. The connector is a Samtec MEC6-140-02. You can get samples of it directly from them. The only trick is that the right-angle and vertical connectors have different alignment pin locations.

I bought my BeMicro some months ago and I did that tutorial lab from Arrow. But only now I got the time to try to develop something by myself. I am trying to learn programmable logic and how to use FPGAs by myself, but I am having a hard time finding material to start doing so with BeMicro. It seems to me that this is not a good choice for a complete newbie in this scene.

I tried following this tutorial now: http://www.altera.com/literature/tt/tt_my_first_fpga.pdf and I got stuck in the "Assign the Pins" step. Everything went just fine, but the pins I created just don't show up in the pin planner. But that doesn't seem to be the worst problem to me. Even if I can assign the pins, I'm not sure how I will adapt the button pin to the BeMicro. I thought about using the serial communication, but I don't know how I would do this.

I have only the BeMicro board, no connector, nor protoboard. Is it possibile to do something to learn how to use FPGAs only with this or if I should get at least the connector.

Thanks,

Daniel Franch

Hi Daniel,

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I have only the BeMicro board, no connector, nor protoboard. Is it possibile to do something to learn how to use FPGAs only with this or if I should get at least the connector.

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Do you have the BeMicro (red PCB, Cyclone III device, with an Arrow USB-Blaster) or the BeMicro-SDK (blue PCB, Cyclone IV device, with a USB-Blaster interface)? I have both, so can give you some example code.

What HDL language are you starting to learn? (I have examples in VHDL, but can help you convert them to Verilog).

The BeMicro has an FTDI FT2232 dual-channel USB-to-serial/parallel interface. The first channel is used for JTAG, the second can be used for serial. Under the device managed in the advanced properties for channel B, enable VCP (the virtual COM port). Then remove and reinsert the board. Channel B will then have a COM number assigned.

Now create a design with

tx <= rx;

Assign these two pins, tri-state all unused pins, and download it.

Bring up hyperterminal, turn off hardware and software handshaking, and type something in. The characters are echoed by the board.

Cool eh!

I can send you a UART-to-Avalon-MM master that you can drop into an SOPC system with a PIO component to toggle LEDs.

Cheers,

Dave

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Hi Daniel,

Do you have the BeMicro (red PCB, Cyclone III device, with an Arrow USB-Blaster) or the BeMicro-SDK (blue PCB, Cyclone IV device, with a USB-Blaster interface)? I have both, so can give you some example code.

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I have the BeMicro, just BeMicro... red PCB with Cyclone III and Arrow USB-Blaster. Some example code would be really great. :)

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What HDL language are you starting to learn? (I have examples in VHDL, but can help you convert them to Verilog).

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Actually, VHDL is just fine for me. This is the language that will be used eventually in my engineering course and it is used in the Programmable Logic department in the company that I work.

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The BeMicro has an FTDI FT2232 dual-channel USB-to-serial/parallel interface. The first channel is used for JTAG, the second can be used for serial. Under the device managed in the advanced properties for channel B, enable VCP (the virtual COM port). Then remove and reinsert the board. Channel B will then have a COM number assigned.

Now create a design with

tx <= rx;

Assign these two pins, tri-state all unused pins, and download it.

Bring up hyperterminal, turn off hardware and software handshaking, and type something in. The characters are echoed by the board.

Cool eh!

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It is exactly something like this I would like to do, since I don't have a connector to use something to communicate with the FPGA. I will probably have to learn how to addapt projects to use the serial communication and the hyperterminal instead of buttons.

But, following that tutorial I linked in my last post, I had a hard time assigning the pins with the Pin Planner. The pins I had designed didn't show up in the pin planner.

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I can send you a UART-to-Avalon-MM master that you can drop into an SOPC system with a PIO component to toggle LEDs.

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That would also be great. Every help will be very much appreciated.

Thank you very much,

Daniel Franch

Hi Daniel,

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Some example code would be really great. :)

Actually, VHDL is just fine for me. This is the language that will be used eventually in my engineering course and it is used in the Programmable Logic department in the company that I work.

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Ok. I'm traveling this week and don't have my BeMicro with me. I'd like to check there are no synthesis warnings before I send you the code. Which version of Quartus are you using?

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It is exactly something like this I would like to do, since I don't have a connector to use something to communicate with the FPGA. I will probably have to learn how to addapt projects to use the serial communication and the hyperterminal instead of buttons.

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Did you test the above procedure works for you? Can you get characters to echo? If so, you can create an SOPC system containing a NIOS processor and regular UART and connect that to the RX/TX pins.

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But, following that tutorial I linked in my last post, I had a hard time assigning the pins with the Pin Planner. The pins I had designed didn't show up in the pin planner.

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Sounds like you might have had a logic error and your logic was synthesized away to nothing.

Try and implement the UART loopback and enable the VCP. That way you'll have made some progress.

Cheers,

Dave

Hi, Dave

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Hi Daniel,

Ok. I'm traveling this week and don't have my BeMicro with me. I'd like to check there are no synthesis warnings before I send you the code. Which version of Quartus are you using?

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No problems, I'm not in a hurry with this. I'm using Quartus II 11.0.

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Did you test the above procedure works for you? Can you get characters to echo? If so, you can create an SOPC system containing a NIOS processor and regular UART and connect that to the RX/TX pins.

Sounds like you might have had a logic error and your logic was synthesized away to nothing.

Try and implement the UART loopback and enable the VCP. That way you'll have made some progress.

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I haven't tried this yet. All I have done was that tutorial, up to that part. Later today I will test the procedure you described. I will be more alert to logic errors this time.

Thanks,

Daniel K. Franch

Hey Dave,

I just did that design you suggested to check the serial transmission, but I'm not sure it worked. Honestly, I'm not so familiar with HyperTerminal (shame on me).

I am not sure if the characters I type on HyperTerminal are show to me also. So I don't know how this design will exactly work. For example, if I type "Hello World" on HyperTerminal I woul get "HHeelllloo WWoorrlldd"? Or what is shown in HyperTerminal is just what I am receiving?

Because the second option is what I'm getting.

Hi Daniel,

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For example, if I type "Hello World" on HyperTerminal I woul get "HHeelllloo WWoorrlldd"? Or what is shown in HyperTerminal is just what I am receiving?

Because the second option is what I'm getting.

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If you create a new Hyperterminal session, then the default is no echoing, so if you type characters and you see them in Hyperterminal, then they are coming from your hardware.

To get repeated characters, you can use File->Properties, Settings Tab, ASCII setup button, and then check 'Echo Typed Characters Locally'. This will help convince you that your hardware really is sending you characters.

Now you can implement a NIOS system with a UART and connect the RX/TX. You can also have that NIOS system connected to a JTAG UART. You can have the project use the JTAG UART for normal stdio, so that it displays in Eclipse, and write some code to generate a string on the hardware UART. Your hyperterminal session will then print out whatever message you are sending from the NIOS processor.

Cheers,

Dave