2–8
Reference Manual
Altera Corporation
Cyclone III FPGA Starter Board
October 2007
Interfaces
Interfaces
This section describes the following Cyclone III FPGA starter board’s
interface blocks:
■
USB interface
■
HSMC expansion connector
■
General user interfaces
USB Interface
The USB-Blaster circuitry is built onto the board. You can simply plug the
USB cable (provided with the kit) into USB connector J3 on the board and
the other end to a USB port on your computer to program and
communicate with the Cyclone III device via the JTAG port.
A USB physical connection is used to enable computers to communicate
with the starter board. To simplify the USB interface, the board contains a
FTDI FT2232L USB universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART)
circuit. The data from the FTDI chip is translated into a JTAG stream
using the Altera EPM3128A CPLD connected to the Cyclone III device’s
dedicated JTAG port.
The 5 V supply for the FTDI device is drawn from the USB connection.
The rest of the circuit operates on 3.3 V supply with 100 mA maximum
and 1.8 V supply with 900 mA maximum voltage.
JP5
3.3 V supply for the MAX device and HSMC. To supply an
external voltage, remove the jumper and connect the external
supply to pin 2. (Pin 2 has a rounded shape on the bottom of the
board.)
JP6
Sense resistor for measuring the power consumed by the 1.2 V
V
CCINT
supply to the Cyclone III device.
JP7
1.8 V power supply to flash device. To supply an external
voltage, remove the jumper and connect the external supply to
pin 2. (Pin 2 has a rounded shape on the bottom of the board.)
JP8
Adding the shunt enables configuration of the Cyclone III device
using the JTAG header and an external USB-Blaster. When the
shunt is not in place, the embedded USB-Blaster circuitry must
be used to configure the Cyclone III device. (The board ships
without the JTAG header populated.)
Table 2–5. Board Jumpers (Part 2 of 2)
Jumper Board
Reference
Jumper Operational Descriptions
