Product category:
Design and Development Hardware
News Release from: Erst Electronic | Subject: Spartan-3/Virtex-II development board
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 10 September 2003
Board provides easy access to FPGA
designs
A new FPGA development board kit eases the implementation and testing of custom designs thanks to its "comfortable" user interface.
A new FPGA development board kit eases the implementation and testing of custom designs thanks to its comfortable user interface The board provides all the necessary basic components needed in most FPGA-based designs
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 9 Dec 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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Special care has been dedicated to routing topology and signal integrity.
Most of the I/Os are routed to external connectors.
The Spartan-3/Virtex-II development board is available in a range of flavours, depending on FPGA and package types.
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The FPGA is either a Spartan-3 or Virtex-II.
Device types include XC3S400 to XC3S5000 and XC2V1000 to XC2V8000.
Package options for Spartan-3 range from a small FG456 over a moderate FG676 to a large FG900 package.
Virtex-II package options include FF896 and FF1152.
Onboard power supplies generate the low-level voltages for the FPGA as well as the reference voltages for various I/O standards and operate from a single 5 to 24V external supply.
A keypad, DIP switches, LEDs, an LCD and a text-to-speech processor provide the user interface.
By connecting a PC to the serial interface designers can further extend the user interface to even more advanced levels.
Six banks of general I/Os of the FPGA are routed to Ermet 2mm hard metric connectors, four connectors for ground based signals and one differential signal connector.
The configuration data of the FPGA is downloadable using any one of the supported modes.
Designers can store configuration bit stream data in an exchangeable ISP PROM module.
Primary clock and secondary clock pins are routed to coaxial SMB connectors.
Two primary clock inputs of the FPGA may get the clock signal from either an internal crystal oscillator or from an external source.
The onboard clocks are generated with crystal oscillators mounted in sockets.
The board also features a real-time clock and a digital thermometer to monitor the FPGA die temperature.
The full kit comprises the fully configured and tested prototyping board, one SPROM module preloaded with a demo program, four 0.1in header connector adapters for ground referenced signals, one 0.1in header connector adapter for low-voltage differential signals, a pair of red/black power cables with 4mm spring contact plugs, a printed user manual with schematic and layout diagrams and a CD-ROM with documentation, datasheets, example code and tools.
The Virtex-II version of this kit is available now; the Spartan-3 version will follow in Q1 2004.
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