Choose A Spartan-3 Generation Starter Kit Board For Your Needs; Spartan-3A/3An Fpga Features And Embedded Processing Functions - Xilinx Spartan-3A User Manual

Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview
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Choose a Spartan-3 Generation Starter Kit Board for your Needs

The Spartan-3A and Spartan-3AN Starter Kit boards are best for prototyping
Spartan-3A/3AN FPGA applications. Depending on specific requirements, however,
Xilinx and third-party companies offer development boards that better suit other needs.

Spartan-3A/3AN FPGA Features and Embedded Processing Functions

The Spartan-3A/3AN Starter Kit board highlights the unique features of the Spartan-3A
and Spartan-3AN FPGA families and provides a convenient development board for
embedded processing applications. The board highlights these features:
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Spartan-3A/3AN Starter Kit Board Verification Design
www.xilinx.com/products/boards/s3astarter/reference_designs.htm#test
This example includes the board test specification and the board test design. This
design was used during initial board verification and some functions are used during
production test. It is provided to test out a board if something is not working as
expected. The design files may also be of general interest. The ZIP file has the design
source, a script to run them, and the resulting compiled files.
Programmer for the STMicroelectronics M29DW323DT Parallel NOR Flash
www.xilinx.com/products/boards/s3astarter/reference_designs.htm#parallel_flash
_programmer
This design transforms the Spartan-3A or Spartan-3AN FPGA into a programmer for
the 32Mbit STMicroelectronics M29DW323DT parallel NOR Flash memory. This
memory optionally holds configuration images for the FPGA and provides general
non-volatile storage for other applications implemented within the FPGA. Using a
simple terminal program, this application provides the following capabilities:
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Erase the memory in part or in full
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Read the memory to verify contents
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Download complete configuration images using standard MCS files
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Manually program individual bytes
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Display the device identifier and 64-bit unique device numbers
Spartan-3A/3AN "Device DNA" Reader
www.xilinx.com/products/boards/s3astarter/reference_designs.htm#dna_reader
This design uses a PicoBlaze™ processor to read the unique "Device DNA" identifier
embedded in each Spartan-3A/3AN FPGA and then display it on the LCD screen.
Spartan-3AN specific features
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Nonvolatile configuration from internal SPI Flash
Spartan-3A/3AN specific features
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Parallel NOR Flash configuration
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SPI serial Flash configuration using either the STMicroelectronics or Atmel
DataFlash architectures
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MultiBoot FPGA configuration from both Parallel NOR and SPI serial Flash
PROMs
Embedded development
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MicroBlaze 32-bit embedded RISC processor
www.xilinx.com Spartan-3A/3AN Starter Kit Board User Guide
UG334 (v1.0) May 28, 2007
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