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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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17 years ago

DE1 board vs Cyclone II FPGA Starter Development Kit

I'm a lecturer at the Department of Electrical, Electronics, Automatic and Communications, University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). For the digital electronic teaching, I would like to buy several development kits of Altera DE1 Board. However, Altera's distributor in Spain (i.e. Farnell) only sells the 'Cyclone II FPGA Starter Development kit'. A priori, both kits seem very similar, but I would like to know exactly the differences between both development kits. Could you give me this information?

Thank in advance!

2 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    17 years ago

    Well I think the hardware differences aren't really important for what you're doing. However, it seems to me the DE1/DE2 series kits from Terasic were specifically designed with education in mind. As such, I believe they come with a lot more design examples and demos to facilitate the teaching of a course.

    But if you're planning on developing your own labs, I'd go with the Cyclone II kit rather than the DE1 kit.

    Jake
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    17 years ago

    Both kits are identical.

    The only difference is that one is Altera branded, the other is Terasic branded. The CD content might be slightly different, but you can download newer versions from Terasic website.

    Please note that despite being marketed for educational purposes, and as with most other Terasic boards, the reference designs are barely commented or documented. They are actually more "demonstrations" than reference designs.

    The hardware you get for the price, especially if you can get the educational discount, is still great IMHO.