FPGA Development Kits: A Comprehensive Guide

This page covers FPGA kits used for evaluating and porting HDL code onto FPGAs. A development board is essentially a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) with electronic circuits, built using various components and an FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) chip, or other chips designed and developed to meet specific application needs.

These readily available boards significantly reduce the time needed for immediate experimentation for FPGA programmers. Otherwise, one would have to assemble components on a PCB along with the FPGA device, then test and troubleshoot the board before being able to run any programs.

To purchase an FPGA development board, you must understand the selection criteria for FPGAs based on your intended application.

Besides the FPGA chip itself, a development board should also have the following, depending on the application:

• HDMI/DVI, PCI/PCI Express interfaces
• External non-serial memory
• MMC/SD card slots
• LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes)
• Switches
• Serial interface ports
• LCD display

There are several major vendors and manufacturers of FPGA development boards, including Altera (now Intel), Xilinx (now AMD), PHYTEC, Microsemi (now Microchip), Lattice Semiconductor, and others.

FPGA Development Boards from Various Manufacturers

Altera (Intel) - www.altera.com

Altera (now Intel) offers a wide range of DSP and FPGA kits. These kits are based on various devices such as Stratix, Arria, Cyclone, and MAX series.

Some kits include onboard ADCs (Analog-to-Digital Converters) and DACs (Digital-to-Analog Converters), which can easily be integrated with third-party RF boards. This enables the generation of modulated RF signals for testing with commercially available devices/equipment or with Vector Signal Generators/Analyzers.

The Stratix III DSP development kit is one such example.

Here are some specific Altera development boards:

• DE0-Nano Board: Features a Cyclone IV EP4CE22F17C6N FPGA, 64-bit serial configuration, a 3-axis accelerometer with 13-bit resolution, an 8-channel, 12-bit resolution A/D converter, 32MB of SDRAM, 2KB of EEPROM, 8 LEDs, and 4 DIP switches.
• Cyclone V GX Starter Kit: Features a Cyclone V GX 5CGXFC5C6F27C7N device, HSMC card, 3.125G transceiver, HDMI transmitter, 24-bit CODEC, 4GB LPDDR2 with a 32-bit data bus, and 4MB of SRAM with a 16-bit data bus.
• BeMicro Board: Features an Altera Cyclone III FPGA, 16MHz clock, LEDs, and more.

Xilinx (AMD)

Various FPGA evaluation kits are available with Xilinx devices pre-installed. Kintex 7, Virtex 7, and other FPGA devices are supported on these boards. They can be used for porting and testing soft IPs (Intellectual Property cores).

Here are some specific boards featuring Xilinx chips:

• Digilent Nexys 3: Features a Spartan6 XC6LX16-CS324 FPGA.
• ZTEK USB FPGA Module: Features a Cypress microcontroller and a Spartan6 LX9 to LX25 FPGA, including 90 GPIOs (General Purpose Input/Output pins), 64MB DDR SDRAM, and 128 kbit EEPROM.
• Mojo Development Board: Features a Spartan6 XC6SLX9 FPGA with 84 digital I/O pins, 8 LEDs, and 8 analog inputs.
• Avnet Spartan6 Board: Features a Spartan6 XC6SLX9-2CSG324C FPGA device. It includes 64MB SDRAM, a 10/100 Ethernet PHY, a USB to UART port, 4 LEDs, and a 4-bit DIP switch.
• Papilio Pro and Pipistrello Boards: Feature Spartan 6 FPGA devices.

PHYTEC - www.phytec.com

PHYTEC embedded boards are designed for microcontrollers, FPGAs, and processors, and are suitable for various application porting and testing scenarios.

Development Boards Using Microsemi (Microchip) Chips - (formerly Actel) - www.microsemi.com

Evaluation kits that support Microsemi’s Fusion family are available. These kits have a built-in ARM Cortex device core. For example, Model No. AFS600-FG256.

Sundance - www.sundance.com

Various Virtex family boards are available, primarily featuring the Virtex 5 FPGA device. Some boards also house multicore DSPs alongside FPGAs.

Nallatech - www.nallatech.com

Nallatech offers various boards featuring Altera and Xilinx FPGAs.

Boards Using Microsemi (Microchip) Chips (formerly Actel)

• Actel IGLOO Nano Starter Kit: Features an AGLN250 VQG100 device, a 20 MHz clock, USB to UART connection, 8 LEDs, and more.

FPGA Development Boards from Lattice Semiconductor

• Lattice XP2 Brevia: Features a LatticeXP2 FPGA device, 2MB SPI memory, onboard USB controller, 1MB SRAM, LEDs, and a DIP switch.
• LatticeECP3 Versa: Features a Lattice ECP3 FPGA device, 1Gbit DDR3, 64 Mbit SPI Flash memory, a 14-segment alphanumeric display, LEDs, and switches.
• Bugblat PiF: Features on-chip LUTs (Look-Up Tables), SRAM blocks, 256kbit flash memory, LEDs, I²C, SPI, PLLs (Phase-Locked Loops), and timers/counters.