Cyclone III development board and USB FT245BL

Hi,

thanks for the tip with the alternative jtag lib, I'll have a look at that.

I just got an answer from Altera, which is incredible:

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Thanks for using mySupport. According to your description, I know that you haven't managed the FTDI chip to be recognized by a connected PC. In fact, customers don't need to configure any dip switches to activate the FTDI. Please just try the following sequences:

1.Power on the Cyclone III development board

2.Plug the USB cable (provided with the kit) into USB connector J3 on the board and the other end to a USB port on your computer

Please let me know the result after you follow the above steps.

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# )

Fortunately, you haven't been asked if the PC is powered at all.

Please consider, that the Altera support guy is apparently focussing on trivial user handling errors. He may have missed some details in your support request. However, as matter of fact, these trivial errors are happening as well, and I expect, that Altera support is dealing with a lot of it.

I don't want to excuse inattentive reading, but it may be necessary to express your intention more clearly for Altera suport. Generally, the question should be addressed to someone responsible for the design of Altera Development Kits.

Hi,

I updated the request now and tried to clarify things. But anyway, I wrote it similar to my initial post here, which was quiet clear - I think ;)

Now I started a 2nd try and wrote to my favourite FAE.

Cheers, Alex

Something is wrong with this board, or at least with the documentation. I just read the reference manual, and it claims that the Cypress chip is reserved for future usage! Can't believe it! How come something so important could be reserved and not usable!

Are you sure this chip is populated? I remember some other similar board, don't remember which one, it included the footprint only.

Anyway, I don't think you need to use the Cypress chip. For a simple control usage, the FTDI/USB Blaster interface is good enough. Check the "In Systems Source and probes Editor" scripting capability, that might be your best solution. You don't need to install NIOS, or Quartus, just the standalone Quartus Programmer, and actually not even completely.

Which reference manual version did you refer to? I have March 08 version (from Starter Kit CD V7.2.0) and it doesn't include such strange remarks. Apparently it's an update in a later revision.

P.S.: No quite right. It's V7.2.3, the most recent version (according to Altera FTP). So I either missed the remark or you have a previous revision.

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Which reference manual version did you refer to? I have March 08 version (from Starter Kit CD V7.2.0) and it doesn't include such strange remarks. Apparently it's an update in a later revision.

P.S.: No quite right. It's V7.2.3, the most recent version (according to Altera FTP). So I either missed the remark or you have a previous revision.

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Seems you are looking at the wrong kit. He has the "development" board (3C120), not the starter kit. The reference manual is here:

http://www.altera.com/literature/manual/rm_cycloneiii_dev_kit_host_board.pdf

Ah yeah, you are right, the December documentation states that the Cypress Chip is for future use and that the FTDI is used for the Byte Blaster Circuitry.

Anyway it's a pity that I can't use USB without Jtag-Uart.

However, in the meantime I connected a Max3232 to the Debug Header. And now the Nios operates with an RS232 Uart which works nicely up to 115200baud.

Cheers, Alex

I'm looking on the right one. The product page only has a link to the V7.2.3 CD with the March 08 manual, there's no link to the newer manual.

P.S.: The change isn't mentioned in revision history,

@FvM:

There is indeed a new documentation from December 2008, if you use vjAlter's link.

It really mentions that the Cypress chip is intended for future use and that the FTDI is used for the Byteblaster.

BTW: Now as I've got the Nios running with the Uart Core, I see that this core is limited to 115200 Baud. Does someone know a faster Uart Core, or do I have to write one myself?

Cheers, Alex

edit: There are some new cdroms on the ftp server available for download:

ftp://ftp.altera.com/outgoing/devkit/cycloneiii_3c120_dev_kit-v8.0.0_cdrom.zip

ftp://ftp.altera.com/outgoing/devkit/cycloneiii_3c120_dsp_kit-v8.0.0_cdrom.zip

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BTW: Now as I've got the Nios running with the Uart Core, I see that this core is limited to 115200 Baud. Does someone know a faster Uart Core, or do I have to write one myself?

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I think that the Uart core is not encrypted, it shouldn't be too difficult to modify it for accepting higher transfer rates. But note that higher speeds might be problematic at the PC side. It depends on the UART hardware, and on the OS and software environment in the PC.

I still think that using the USB Blaster interface might be a better choice.

What exactly is your "speed" problem? Throughput or latency? USB would, of course, give you faster throughput, but latency might be worse than an UART.