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Altera_Forum
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10 years ago

Communication between Cyclone III FPGA and PC vis USB(on board)

Dear Madam/Sir, My name is Peipei Hu, from the University of Manchester, UK. I am doing a project relates to FPGA Cyclone III. Basically, I use Cyclone III FPGA Starter Board(EP3C25F324)...
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Altera_Forum
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10 years ago

There's basically an option to communicate through USB blaster and virtual JTAG functions (e.g. source & probe, in-system-memory editor, JTAG UART). But support on the PC side is very limited, only scarce applications for the JTAG UART have been published so far. The starter board "control panel" is accessing virtual JTAG functions through undocumented alt_jtaglib.dll on top of Quartus jtag_client.dll.

You should also review previous threads about this topic, e.g.

http://www.alteraforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2199

http://www.alteraforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1686

http://www.alteraforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4256

In any case, implementing an UART interface on the development kit and connecting it through a FTDI USB-to-UART bridge is a straightforward solution.