Chapter 1. Getting Started; Introduction; Before You Begin - Altera Cyclone III FPGA Starter Kit User Manual

Introduction

f
Before You
Begin
Altera Corporation
April 2007
Welcome to the Altera
full-featured field-programmable gate array (FPGA) development board,
hardware and software development tools, documentation, and
accessories needed to begin FPGA development.
The development board includes an Altera Cyclone III FPGA and comes
preconfigured with a hardware reference design stored in flash memory.
Hardware designers can use the development board as a platform to
prototype a variety of FPGA designs.
The kit provides an integrated control environment that includes a
software controller in control panel application, a USB command
controller, a multi-port SRAM/DDR SDRAM/flash memory controller,
and demonstration circuitry specified in Verilog code. This design is
provided as a starting point for test designs so users can get up and
running quickly. This user guide addresses the following topics:
■
How to set up, power up, and verify correct operation of the
development board
■
Where to get and how to install the Altera Development Suite Tools
■
How to install the Cyclone III FPGA Starter Kit CD-ROM
■
How to set up and use the control panel, a graphical user interface
(GUI), to manipulate components on the board, implement
applications, and display images on a VGA monitor.
■
How to configure the Cyclone III FPGA
■
How to set up and run application examples.
For complete details on the development board, refer to the
Cyclone III FPGA Starter Board Reference Manual.
Before proceeding, check the contents of the kit:
■
Cyclone III FPGA Starter Development Board
■
Cyclone III FPGA Starter Kit CD-ROM containing the development
board documentation and supporting materials, including the user
guide and reference manual, control panel utility, design examples,
device datasheets, and tutorials.
■
12 V DC power supply
■
USB cable
Core Version a.b.c variable
1. Getting Started
® ®
Cyclone III FPGA Starter Kit, which includes a
1–1
Preliminary