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Nexys 3
™ FPGA Board Reference Manual
Revised April 11, 2016
This manual applies to the Nexys 3 rev. B
DOC#: 502-182
Copyright Digilent, Inc. All rights reserved.
Other product and company names mentioned may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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Overview
The Nexys 3 is a complete, ready-to-use digital circuit development platform based on the Xilinx Spartan-6 LX16
FPGA. The Spartan-6 is optimized for high performance logic, and offers more than 50% higher capacity, higher
performance, and more resources as compared to the Nexys 2's Spartan-3 500E FPGA.
In addition to the Spartan-6 FPGA, the Nexys 3 offers an improved collection of peripherals including 32Mbytes of
Micron's latest Phase Change nonvolatile memory, a 10/100 Ethernet PHY, 16Mbytes of Cellular RAM, a USB-
UART port, a USB host port for mice and keyboards, and an improved high-speed expansion connector. The large
FPGA and broad set of peripherals make the Nexys 3 board an ideal host for a wide range of digital systems,
including embedded processor designs based on Xilinx's MicroBlaze.
Nexys 3 is compatible with all Xilinx CAD tools, including ChipScope, EDK, and the free WebPack. The Nexys 3 uses
Digilent's newest Adept USB2 system that offers FPGA and ROM programming, automated board tests, virtual I/O,
and simplified user-data transfer facilities.
A comprehensive collection of board support IP and reference designs, and a large collection of add-on boards are
available on the Digilent website. Please see the Nexys 3 page at
www.digilentinc.com
for more information.
Xilinx Spartan-6 LX16 FPGA in a 324-pin BGA
package
16Mbyte Cellular RAM (x16)
16Mbytes SPI (quad mode) PCM non-volatile
memory
16Mbytes parallel PCM non-volatile memory
10/100 Ethernet PHY
On-board USB2 port for programming & data
xfer
USB-UART and USB-HID port (for
mouse/keyboard)
8-bit VGA port
100MHz CMOS oscillator
72 I/Os routed to expansion connectors
GPIO includes 8 LEDs, 5 buttons,8 slide
switches and 4-digit seven-segment display
USB2 programming cable included
Features include:
