Altera Cyclone III FPGA User manual

101 Innovation Drive
San Jose, CA 95134
www.altera.com
Cyclone III FPGA Starter Board
Reference Manual
Document Date: October 2007

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ii Reference Manual0Altera Corporation
Cyclone III FPGA Starter Board October 2007
Part Number MNL-01016-1.1

Altera Corporation iii
October 2007 Preliminary
Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction
General Description ............................................................................................................................... 1–1
Board Component Blocks ................................................................................................................ 1–2
Block Diagram .................................................................................................................................. 1–3
Handling the Board ............................................................................................................................... 1–3
Chapter 2. Board Components & Interfaces
Board Overview ..................................................................................................................................... 2–1
Featured Device ..................................................................................................................................... 2–5
Clocking Circuitry ................................................................................................................................. 2–6
Jumpers ................................................................................................................................................... 2–7
Interfaces ................................................................................................................................................. 2–8
USB Interface ..................................................................................................................................... 2–8
HSMC Expansion Connector .......................................................................................................... 2–9
General User Interfaces ................................................................................................................. 2–10
Push Buttons .............................................................................................................................. 2–13
LEDs ............................................................................................................................................ 2–14
Memory ................................................................................................................................................. 2–16
Parallel Flash ................................................................................................................................... 2–16
DDR SDRAM .................................................................................................................................. 2–18
SSRAM ............................................................................................................................................. 2–19
Power Supply ....................................................................................................................................... 2–22
Statement of China-RoHS Compliance ............................................................................................ 2–23
Additional Information
Revision History ............................................................................................................................... Info–i
How to Contact Altera ..................................................................................................................... Info–i
Typographic Conventions .............................................................................................................. Info–ii

iv Altera Corporation
Preliminary October 2007
Contents Stratix Device Handbook, Volume 1

Altera Corporation Reference Manual 1–1
October 2007 Preliminary
1. Introduction
General
Description
This reference manual provides comprehensive information about the
Altera®Cyclone®III family of devices and the Cyclone III FPGA starter
board.
The Cyclone®III starter board provides a hardware platform that offers a
unique opportunity to customize your development environment via
expansion connectors and daughter cards as well as evaluate the feature-
rich, low-power Altera®Cyclone III device.
For more functionality, the starter board can be expanded through
daughter cards connected to the Altera High Speed Mezzanine Card
(HSMC) connector. Altera and development kit partners are creating
HSMC daughter cards that allow you to expand the functionality of the
board.
fFor the latest information about available HMSC daughter cards, go to
www.altera.com/products/devkits/kit-index.html.
The main features of the Cyclone III starter board are:
■Low-power consumption Altera Cyclone III EP3C25 chip in a
324-pin FineLine BGA (FBGA) package
■Expandable through HSMC connector
■32-Mbyte DDR SDRAM
■16-Mbyte parallel flash device for configuration and storage
■1 Mbyte high-speed SSRAM memory
■Four user push-button switches
■Four user LEDs
The main advantages of the Cyclone III starter board are:
■Facilitates a fast and successful FPGA design experience with helpful
example designs and demonstrations.
■Directly configure and communicate with the Cyclone III device via
the on-board USB-Blaster™circuitry and JTAG header
■Active Parallel flash configuration
■Low power consumption
■Cost-effective modular design

1–2 Reference Manual Altera Corporation
Cyclone III FPGA Starter Board October 2007
General Description
Board Component Blocks
■Altera Cyclone III EP3C25F324 FPGA
●25K logic elements (LEs)
●66 M9K memory blocks (0.6 Mbits)
●16 18x18 multiplier blocks
●Four PLLs
●214 I/Os
■Clock management system
●One 50 MHz clock oscillator to support a variety of protocols
●The Cyclone III device distributes the following clocks from its
on-board PLLs:
•DDR clock
•SSRAM clock
•Flash clock
■HSMC connector
●Provides 12 V and 3.3 V interface for installed daughter cards
●Provides up to 84 I/O pins for communicating with HSMC
daughter cards
■General user-interface
●Four user LEDs
●Two board-specific LEDs
●Push-buttons:
•System reset
•User reset
•Four general user push-buttons
■Memory subsystem
●Synchronous SRAM device
•1-Mbyte standard synchronous SRAM
•167-MHz
•Shares bus with parallel flash device
●Parallel flash device
•16-Mbyte device for active parallel configuration and
storage
•Shares bus with SRAM device
●DDR SDRAM device
•56-pin, 32-Mbyte DDR SDRAM
•167-MHz
•Connected to FPGA via dedicated 16-bit bus
■Built-in USB-Blaster interface
●Using the Altera EPM3128A CPLD
●For external configuration of Cyclone III device
●For system debugging using the SignalTap®and Nios®
debugging console
●Communications port for Board Diagnostic graphical user
interface (GUI)

Altera Corporation Reference Manual 1–3
October 2007 Cyclone III FPGA Starter Board
Introduction
Block Diagram
Figure 1–1 shows a functional block diagram of the Cyclone III FPGA
starter board.
Figure 1–1. Cyclone III FPGA Starter Board
Handling the
Board
When handling the board, it is important to observe the following
precaution:
cStatic Discharge Precaution—Without proper anti-static handling,
the board can be damaged. Therefore, use anti-static handling
precautions when touching the board.
84
HSMC
4
Switches
4
LEDs
4
Parallel Flash
16MB
SSRAM
1MB
4
USB
Blaster
4
DDR
32MB
42
72
Cyclone III
EP3C25F324

1–4 Reference Manual Altera Corporation
Cyclone III FPGA Starter Board October 2007
Handling the Board

Altera Corporation Reference Manual 2–1
October 2007 Preliminary
2. Board Components &
Interfaces
Board Overview This chapter provides operational and connectivity detail for the board’s
major components and interfaces and is divided into the following major
blocks:
■Featured device
■Clocking circuitry
■Jumpers
■Interfaces
●USB interface
●Altera®HSMC expansion connector
●General user interfaces
■Memory
■Power supply
■Statement of China-RoHS compliance
1Board schematics, the physical layout database, and
manufacturing files for the Cyclone®III FPGA starter board are
included in the Cyclone III FPGA Starter Kit in the following
directory:
altera\<version#>\kits\cycloneIII_3c25_start\board_design_files
fFor information on powering-up the Cyclone III FPGA starter board and
installing the demo software, refer to the Cyclone III FPGA Starter Kit
Getting Started User Guide.

2–2 Reference Manual Altera Corporation
Cyclone III FPGA Starter Board October 2007
Board Overview
Figure 2–1 shows the top view of the Cyclone III FPGA starter board.
Figure 2–1. Top View of the Cyclone III FPGA Starter Board
Cyclone III Device (U1)
User Push Button Switches
User LEDs
USB
UART (U8)
HSMC
Connector (J1)
DC Power
Input (J2)
Power Switch
(SW1)
USB
Connector
(J3)
Configuration Done LED
32-Mbyte
DDR SDRAM (U4)
Flash LED
1-Mbyte SSRAM (U5)
50-MHz
System Clock
Reconfigure
and Reset
Push Buttons
16-Mbyte
Parallel
Flash (U6)
JTAG Header (J4)
2.5 V I/O Power
Measurement (JP3)
FPGA Core Power
Measurement (JP6)