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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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14 years ago

where do I start?

Hi every one I want to learn how to use FPGAs but I don't know where to start or what should I study first. I know about microcontrollers but nothing about HDL or FPGAs. Does anybody knows a go...
Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
14 years ago

Here's a few kits to consider:

1. The Cyclone III starter kit $199:

http://www.altera.com/products/devkits/altera/kit-cyc3-starter.html

2. This kit is used as the baseboard to the Nios Embedded Evaluation Kit (NEEK) $449

http://www.altera.com/products/devkits/altera/kit-cyc3-embedded.html

3. The BeMicro-SDK $79

http://www.arrownac.com/offers/altera-corporation/altera-bemicro/

is a pain, since they put low-power DDR memory on the board, and you have to use an IP core from Microtronics to access it. I have one, but haven't bothered to test the DDR.

4. The Terasic DE0 $199

http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?language=english&categoryno=56&no=364

This is a lot more for your $ than the BeMicro-SDK.

5. The DE0-Nano $79

http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?language=english&categoryno=139&no=593

Again, this is probably a better board than the BeMicro-SDK.

I don't have this board, but I've seen plenty of discussions on this list. So you can search for people's experience with it.

Cheers,

Dave