Altum Live Designer Evaluation Kit

Description: Altium Enables Engineers to Experience New 'Live' Approach to Electronics Design; LiveDesign Evaluation Kits Feature Altera Cyclone and Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA DevicesAltium Limited (ASX:ALU), a leading developer of Windows-based electronics design software, today announced the release of new LiveDesign evaluation kits that include a versatile, low-cost evaluation board with the choice of either an Altera Cyclone or Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA device. These affordable evaluation kits enable engineers and designers to evaluate Altium's latest DXP 2004 product range and fully experience the benefits of LiveDesign, a unique new digital systems design methodology, in its Nexar and Protel design systems. LiveDesign takes advantage of the availability of low-cost, high-capacity, high-performance FPGAs, and uses them as a reconfigurable implementation platform for digital circuitry during system development; effectively using them as a nano-level breadboard. This enables a 'live' and interactive development and testing of electronics systems inside a programmable hardware design space.A complete LiveDesign evaluation toolkitThe LiveDesign evaluation kits combine a software evaluation license of Altium's Unified Nexar-Protel 2004 system, which includes a complete range of PCB and FPGA hardware design tools, integrated software development tools, ready-to-use FPGA-based components and processor cores and virtual instrumentation, with a versatile, low-cost, FPGA-based LiveDesign evaluation development board plus cabling and accessories. The kits also come with an extensive range of tutorial and support documentation to ensure an easy and productive evaluation of Altium's design software and to allow users to experience the benefits of the LiveDesign process. There are over 10 reference designs featuring the range of included processor cores that show how to get a simple processor-based design running on the board.When customers are ready to purchase any of Altium's LiveDesign-enabled design systems after using the evaluation kit, they have the option to purchase Altium's NanoBoard -- a fully-featured, LiveDesign development board that provides an expanded range of peripherals from those found on the evaluation board, and houses the target FPGA device on swappable daughter boards to enable easy retargeting of the design to a wide range of supported devices from multiple FPGA vendors. The NanoBoard also provides the ability to connect into the system FPGA-based user boards or final production board, allowing the LiveDesign process to be extended to the target PCB. Also, multiple NanoBoards can be chained together to support the development of systems with multiple FPGA devices."The availability and affordability of these evaluation kits makes it easy for all engineers to discover the benefits of LiveDesign and gain a sense of the power that the full Unified Nexar-Protel system can bring to their designs," said Martin.Versatile FPGA development board includedThe development board supplied with the LiveDesign evaluation kits can be specified with either a high-capacity Altera Cyclone or Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA, and features a wide range of on-board peripherals and connectors to provide a versatile development platform.Key features of the LiveDesign evaluation board include:-- On-board FPGA Device (EP1C12F324C8 or XC3S400-4FG456C)-- Dual 256Kx16 BIT, FPGA-configurable, high-speed, static RAM-- Delta Sigma stereo DAC with user-adjustable corner frequency-- Dual (stereo) miniature speakers with volume control-- Audio Line Out and headphone 2.5mm jacks with volume control-- 6-digit 7-segment LED display-- Fixed 50mHz clock-- RS232 serial port-- VGA port-- PS2 Mini DIN mouse port-- PS2 Mini DIN PC keyboard port-- 8-way DIP switch-- LED array, 8 LEDs-- Dual 20 pin I/O expansion headers with power supply selection links-- User-defined TEST/RESET buttonThe evaluation board connects to the user's PC via the parallel port to interact 'live' with the software. Pin configuration on the parallel port conforms to the relevant FPGA vendor's standards for the target FPGA. This means that after the software evaluation period has expired, the evaluation board can be used directly with the FPGA vendor tools as a standard development board, independent of the Altium design software. Using the LiveDesign Evaluation Board with ISEby Dennis BemmannAltium Ltd. offers a pretty cool FPGA development board, the LiveDesign Evaluation Board EB1. This board has a rich feature set including many switches and LEDs, fast RAM, a 6 digit 7-segment display, connectors for VGA, RS232 and PS/2 and a delta-sigma DAC audio chain with two speakers. The board is available either with a Xilinx Spartan-3 400 chip, or with a similar Altera device. This page is about the Xilinx version.The price of the board (99$) is unbeatable - this makes it interesting to hobbyists. The board comes with a 30-day evaluation license for Altium's PCB/FPGA design software. The software is really great, but poor students like me cannot afford it, that's why I was trying to find out how the board can be used with the free ISE WebPack software from Xilinx. The documentation of course doesn't say anything about it.ConfigurationFirst observation: the board can be configured with iMPACT. You don't even need a separate download cable, just plug the parallel cable that comes with the board into the LPT port and the board will emulate a Xilinx cable. iMPACT detects the FPGA in boundary-scan mode. Assign a bitstream, download and there you go.Location ConstraintsWell... there is no UCF file provided with the board, because Altium's vendor-independent software has its own concept for constraints and configuration. That means, you have to manually find the FPGA pins in the board's schematic and write your own UCF file. Looking up pins in schematic sheets is very boring. No fun, so I did it for you. Download my sample UCF file or my complete UCF file.# --- PAD LOCATIONS LISTED --- # clk - Clock 50 MHz # testsw - Test/Reset button # audio<1:0> - Audio outputs 0=left 1=right # leds<7:0> - LEDs (bottom left on board) # switches<7:0> - Dip switches # buttons<5:0> - Buttons below the 7-segment displays # dign<7:0> - 7-segment displays, n = number of digit [0,1,2,3,4,5] # vga_c<2:0> - VGA color pins, c = [r,g,b] # vga_hsyn - VGA horizontal sync # vga_hsyn - VGA vertical sync # rs232_cts - RS232 clear to send # rs232_rts - RS232 ready to send # rs232_rx - RS232 receive # rs232_tx - RS232 transmit # ps2a_data - PS/2 port A# --- TO DO --- # more PS/2 connectors, SRAM, Expansion pins ISE projectTo get going, start a new ISE project and select the correct FPGA type (Spartan-3 XC3S400-FG456). I have prepared sample code to demonstrate the board's components. Download my sample VHDL file. Put it into your ISE project and implement it on the board using my UCF file from above. You can then turn on and off the LED bar using the DIP switches, and the 7-segment display shows a counter counting binary. Looks weird but works. Press the user buttons to turn on some segments of the second digit and to hear a few sounds. They sound like a telephone ringing.This should get you started. If you have something new for the board, please let me know. I'd be interested in a memory controller, and even more in peripherals that use the expansion pins...

Price: 449 USD

Location: Budapest, BP

End Time: 2024-02-27T13:27:36.000Z

Shipping Cost: 100 USD