Hi all, I'm a student of Engineering of Telecommunications.In my thesys I must realize a digital circuit on FPGA,but I can't make it all on the same FPGA board,because of occupation of resources.So I must realize some blocks of this circuit(such as a FIR filter) on a second FPGA board. Someone can tell me how could I connect a single block of the first FPGA with a block of the second one? Thanks in Advances.

Technically, you can connect FPGA's anyway you want. SPI, I2C, PCI, PCI Express, LVDS, DDR, etc. (I know I'm confusing protocol standards with IO standards and what not...) My guess is you're not designing the board, and the decision is probably already decided for you, at least at the physical layer. What type of physical connections are there between the boards? Once you have that, you need to decide how they interact? Do they need to send data back and forth within a clock cycle, or is it purely a data dump from one side to the other? Do you need any sort of error correction/protection, in case the wires get noisy? My guess is it will be as simple as possible, whereby you connect as many wires as you physically can, depending on how much data you'll be sending, and then just send one bit of data per clock, assuming the clock speed is slow enough and there is a relationship between the clocks on the two FPGAs.

I agree with Rysc. Start with what interface is available on board for connecting two boards (and hence two FPGAs). Then look for what will be the maximum data transfer rate (and hence clock rate) required to meet the design requirements. If the board-to-board interface options meet your data transfer rate requirements then you can select any of the protocols to implement FPGA-to-FPGA communication. E.g., if it's a slow speed connection, you can use UART using two data lines + GND only to communicate between two FPGAs. If you need high speed, then you can use LVDS or some other tranceivers with standard or custom protocol, provided the board and the FPGA supports it.

Hello there, I have a similar problem pertaining two FPGAs together. Currently, my design has exceeded my FPGA's LE count and therefore, i am planning to connect two altera UP2 boards using JTAG. The UP board has a CPLD (EPM7128) and FPGA (Flex 10k). from my understanding, if Quartus detected the assembly is larger than the device, it will generate more than one programming file..such as pof_1. However, the web edition software could notgenerate more than one program file. Instead, i have this error: *** Error: Project requires 6182 logic cells, but the selected device can contain only 3744 logic cells Error: Can't find fit Error: Quartus II Fitter was unsuccessful. 2 errors, 1 warning Info: Allocated 180 megabytes of memory during processing *** Could it be my web edition quartus's limitation?

Quartus II won't ever generate two programming files from one design. There are a number of issues(how do we know the pinout of the second device is the same as the first, and even if it is, which pins do we use? Transferring data between devices will add cycles/delays, which will change the functionality. Plus splitting a project at a given place generally adds a lot of other pins we would need to connect, etc.) These issues all need to be handled by the user, i.e. create two separate projects with separate code, and develop a way for them to talk to each other.

Hi, I have heard of "super-project" (or some terminology like that) feature in Quartus for multiple fpgas but never went for it.

Linking of two FPGA | Altera Community

12 Replies

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
19 years ago
I agree with Rysc. Start with what interface is available on board for connecting two boards (and hence two FPGAs). Then look for what will be the maximum data transfer rate (and hence clock rate) required to meet the design requirements. If the board-to-board interface options meet your data transfer rate requirements then you can select any of the protocols to implement FPGA-to-FPGA communication. E.g., if it's a slow speed connection, you can use UART using two data lines + GND only to communicate between two FPGAs. If you need high speed, then you can use LVDS or some other tranceivers with standard or custom protocol, provided the board and the FPGA supports it.
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
19 years ago
Technically, you can connect FPGA's anyway you want. SPI, I2C, PCI, PCI Express, LVDS, DDR, etc. (I know I'm confusing protocol standards with IO standards and what not...) My guess is you're not designing the board, and the decision is probably already decided for you, at least at the physical layer. What type of physical connections are there between the boards? Once you have that, you need to decide how they interact? Do they need to send data back and forth within a clock cycle, or is it purely a data dump from one side to the other? Do you need any sort of error correction/protection, in case the wires get noisy?

My guess is it will be as simple as possible, whereby you connect as many wires as you physically can, depending on how much data you'll be sending, and then just send one bit of data per clock, assuming the clock speed is slow enough and there is a relationship between the clocks on the two FPGAs.

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Linking of two FPGA

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