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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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15 years ago

Evaluation Kit, Suggestion

Hello, everyone,

first i just join this forum. and next comes my question :)

well i am new to Cyclone III environment, just switched to this platform for a project. so i need some help here. in my team project, we will be using FPGA (ep3 c16 q240 c8n), so what i need now is a correct selection of evaluation board for this FPGA, can any one recommend me and current platform suitable for this FPGA, so i can start my development part and be ready by the time our custom application board is ready with this FPGA on board.

i would be looking forward for the reply

Best regards

3 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    15 years ago

    Can any one help me with this pls, i would be looking forward for help.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    The most suitable eval board depends on what exactly you are trying to accomplish and what I/Os you need. There is a list of eval boards (http://www.altera.com/products/devkits/kit-dev_platforms.jsp) on the Altera website.

    For Cyclone III, some choices include:

    bemicro fpga evaluation kit (http://www.altera.com/b/nios-bemicro-evaluation-kit.html) (EPC316)

    cyclone iii fpga starter kit (http://www.altera.com/products/devkits/altera/kit-cyc3-starter.html) (EPC325)

    There are also many other choices.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    What peripherals and/or support devices do you need on the board? Do you need any I/O connections to additional circuitry?

    The Bemicro is limited in that it only has some RAM and a USB-to-RS232 UART as peripherals. You can add an 8-pin SPI FLASH device to the board (make sure to change the on-board jumper) and you can buy a break-out board as well.

    The Starter kit provides many more peripherals.

    I mainly use the Bemicro for NIOS II/SOPC development and for testing small chunks of Verilog/VHDL code. Compiling for the Bemicro is much faster than compiling for our actual boards (2 min vs 90min) because our actual boards require much more logic to be instantiated inside of the FPGA for minimum operation.

    Other CIII kits (list from Digikey):

    NIOS II CYCLONE III ED (EP3C25)

    DEV DSP CYCLONE III (EP3C120)

    EMB CYCLONE III EDITION (EP3C120)

    DEV CYCLONE III EP3C120 (EP3C120)

    DEV CYCLONE III LS (EP3CLS200)