Noone had any advice about running Cyclone II based boards off rechargeable batteries? Is there something I dont know where it's a bad idea?

Hi there. I saw your original post but had no particular advice to offer, so I didn't bother. However, I hate to see you neglected so here's my opinion. I can see no reason why you can't run your Cyclone II system from rechargeable batteries. Depending on the device you use, I can imagine that the current drain could be pretty high. I am just about to get my first Cyclone II based prototype board back from the manufacturers and so I'm still feeling my way a bit with the power requirements. In order to derive the necessary core, PLL and I/O supply voltages from your battery I'd look at using a multi-output switched mode controller. A rep. from Arrow showed me a little evaluation board the other day for a Linear Technology device which occupied a very small board area and needed only tiny external components. I'm sure National Semi etc. will do similar devices. One other thought. If you haven't started your design yet, should you be looking at Cyclone III instead? Maybe others could comment.

Thanks Sharky, it's going to be a toy/game thing, so I dont know If my idea will work with the cyclone II if the battery life will be short, I'm planning a "laser tag" sort of device pair. I found that national semi stuff on google, I may have to figure out which option of theirs to use. So sounds like you work with this stuff, thats great. I just do it as a hobby since I was educated as an Engineer and enjoy it. Defense plants around here just want people who have been on the job with this stuff for 10 years.

Hi Evil. I'm a bit surprised that nobody has come forward with a more helpful response on the power requirement question. I suppose it does depend a lot on the device you're thinking of using and what sort of external components you'll need. If the project is mostly for your own personal enjoyment and education then you should go ahead with it anyway. My design uses an EP2C20F256 device with some external flash and SRAM for program memory (I'm using NIOSII). Apart from that I've got a few A/D converters, digital I/O etc. I tried to estimate the likely power consumption using the Powerplay feature of Quartus, but to be entirely honest it's going to be a bit of a 'finger in the air' approach. I'll let you know how I get on. In the meantime, good luck in your endeavours. Sharky

My needs for power are minimal (insert joke about me not really being evil here), the Cyclone II FPGA (144 pin type so I have a chance of soldering it). the EPCS chips, a few buttons, some small relays controling things from another bigger battery. It's just a toy/game prototype, so I'd rather carry extra batteries then build a 1.2v/3.3v warp drive. This is my first PCB build and design, using PCB123 unless you know a better solution. I was a computer Engineer but never did much soldering, hoping the weller WES-51 I got may make it easier.

I haven't worked yet on battery powered FPGA system, but I would recommend that you try to keep the current consumption as low as possible in your design (being battery powered). When powering from a battery, you will also have to consider FPGA power up in-rush current requirements, which can affect more when the battery is partially drained.

Im curious why | Altera Community

25 Replies

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
18 years ago
If you want to go with an easy to use switcher, you can use the point of load modules. One made for FPGA's is the muRata MPDTY01 www.murata.com/power/short/f07e1.pdf . A whole range of options for Altera FPGA's is found at
www.murata.com/power/fpga/altera/index.html
including a power supply design reference guild for Altera FPGAs.
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
18 years ago
--- Quote Start ---
If you want to learn a little more about cyclone devices for battery powered applications, you may want to try to look at this board that linear tech and arrow put together:

http://www.fpgajournal.com/articles_2007/20070904_proof.htm

this is a nice little write up from fpga journal.

good luck,

guano
--- Quote End ---

Thanks for the pointer. Does anymore here happen to know exactly which device is used for the CellularRAM? I'm particularly curious whether they picked a muxed Addr/Data version.

Tommy
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
18 years ago
The CellularRam utilized in the LPRP is referenced by the hyperlink below.

It has separate address, data and control busses. It can handle about 135 Mbyte/sec transfer rate and automatically defaults to < 200uW of powerdraw when it is not being accessed. It has both a simple assynchronous (SRAM like) interface or a higher performance burst mode interface. The LPRP uses it in burst mode.

http://www.micron.com/products/partdetail?part=mt45w4mw16bcgb-701%20wt (http://www.micron.com/products/partdetail?part=mt45w4mw16bcgb-701%20wt)
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
18 years ago
Thanks (again) Skravats. I actually attended the Arrow event and have the LPRP in hand.

While I have issues with the Arrow event, the LPRP board is pretty cool. Had the LPRP been 1/3 - 1/4th the size, it could have been immediately useful besides just being a dev kit. Hopefully we'll see more battery power dev kits in future.
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
18 years ago
I want you to know I've returned to this project and still intend to finish it. I still appreciate all your good advice, I am now working on getting one of those small text LCDs to work with my project before anything else, then I will return to this problem, thanks for your help.

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Im curious why

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