Question about USB Blaster

The FPGA can be programed in many ways

- JTAG (USB Blaster + Quartus or a JAM player)

- Active Serial/Parallel -- it loads it's configuration from a flash memory

- Passive Serial/Parallel -- it's fed it's configuration by another device

See Chapter 9 of the Cyclone III handbook.

Thanks for the quick response,

I am checking the threads of the forum and seems like there is no way to program the FPGA without purchasing the USB blaster module since is the only way to get the program inside the CPLD with the ALTERA protocol, and that was what I was looking for (a way to program the FPGA using USB ).

-Thanks

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I am checking the threads of the forum and seems like there is no way to program the FPGA without purchasing the USB blaster module since is the only way to get the program inside the CPLD with the ALTERA protocol, and that was what I was looking for (a way to program the FPGA using USB ).

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Terasic sell the USB-Blaster for $50.

http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?language=english&categoryno=&no=46

If you are going to do any FPGA development, you really do need this cable. The Quartus software uses it not only for configuring the FPGA, but also as a communications channel and logic analyzer interface.

You can program the FPGA without a USB-Blaster, eg., using an FT2232, however, you have to port a standalone programmer tool such as the Jam STAPL player to do that. I suspect paying $50 for a USB-Blaster would be cheaper in terms of stress levels and your time. :)

Cheers,

Dave

Hi

Thanks for the advice, I will opt for the USB-Blaster solution.

Thanks