Forum Discussion

Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
13 years ago

Cyclone III configuration scheme

Hi I'm confuse with Cyclone fpga family and configuration schemes. In school we have an Altera board with a Cyclone II fpga, I know that the board use an EPC2 configuration device and w...
Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
13 years ago

The USB blaster can program the FPGA itself in whatever configuration you use, as JTAG mode overtakes all the other modes. Themode to use depends on the configuration device you want to use and how it is connected. The easiest way with the Cyclone III is an enhanced configuration device (EPCS) in an active serial mode, as described page 9-13 of this document (http://www.altera.com/literature/hb/cyc3/cyc3_ciii51016.pdf).

With the Cyclone III you don't need to connect the USB blaster to the flash memory, you can program it by going through the FPGA and use a Serial Flash Loader image.