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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
Honored ContributorSales Support & Product Suggestions Request
Hi,
I am just starting with FPGAs and require product suggestions. We have a project that we would like to "burn?" into a FPGA or CPLD. What hardware do we need to burn the chips using the Quartus II? My Web research indicates something called a USB blaster which connects some board to a PC. Where do I get this board from? Is it a development board? If so do different families of chips have different dev. boards? Thank you for your support. Added: After some more research it seems that the Altium Livedesign might be a good place to start: http://www.altera.com/products/devkits/partners/kit-alt-live-design.html Any catches as to why it is so cheap compared to Altera dev. kits?11 Replies
Altera_ForumHello,
as a first step to a hardware decision, you should have an idea of the approximate design complexity in terms of required I/O pins and internal logical functions. For low to medium complex designs, the MAX II family could be interesting. These CPLD devices are actually FPGAs with internal configuration memory. USB Blaster is an Altera programming adapter used to download logic configuration to programmable devices and for debugging purposes. Livedesign evaluation board utilizes a Cyclone EP1C12, which isn't latest technology, missing some feature available with Cyclone II and Cyclone III, so I wouldn't reommend this device family for new designs. But it is powerful anyway and could be used for general evaluation purposes. Best regards, Frank
