2R Hardware & Electronics: Altera DE2-115 Development and Education Board

Saturday, December 01, 2012

Altera DE2-115 Development and Education Board

The DE2 series has consistently been at the forefront of educational development boards by distinguishing itself with an abundance of interfaces to accommodate various application needs. Extending its leadership and success, Terasic announces the latest DE2-115 that features the Cyclone IV E device. Responding to increased versatile low-cost spectrum needs driven by the demand for mobile video, voice, data access, and the hunger for high-quality images, the new DE2-115 offers an optimal balance of low cost, low power and a rich supply of logic, memory and DSP capabilities.

The Cyclone EP4CE115 device equipped on the DE2-115 features 114,480 logic elements (LEs), the largest offered in the Cyclone IV E series, up to 3.9-Mbits of RAM, and 266 multipliers. In addition, it delivers an unprecedented combination of low cost and functionality, and lower power compared to previous generation Cyclone devices.

The DE2-115 adopts similar features from the earlier DE2 series primarily the DE2-70, as well as additional interfaces to support mainstream protocols including Gigabit Ethernet (GbE). A High-Speed Mezzanine Card (HSMC) connector is provided to support additional functionality and connectivity via HSMC daughter cards and cables. For large-scale ASIC prototype development, a connection can be made with two or more FPGA-based boards by means of a HSMC cable through the HSMC connector.

The DE2-115 Board

Cyclone® IV EP4CE115

114,480 logic elements (LEs)

3,888 Embedded memory (Kbits)

266 Embedded 18 x 18 multipliers

4 General-purpose PLLs

528 User I/Os

Configuration Device and USB-Blaster Circuit

EPCS64 serial configuration device

On-board USB-Blaster circuitry

JTAG and AS mode configuration supported

Memory Devices

128MB (32Mx32bit) SDRAM

2MB (1Mx16) SRAM

8MB (4Mx16) Flash with 8-bit mode

32Kbit EEPROM

Switches and Indicators

18 switches and 4 push-buttons

18 red and 9 green LEDs

Eight 7-segment displays

Audio

24-bit encoder/decoder(CODEC)

line-in, line-out, and microphone-in jacks

Display

16x2 LCD module

On-Board Clocking Circuitry

Three 50MHz oscillator clock inputs

SMA connectors (external clock input/output)

SD Card Socket

Provides SPI and 4-bit SD mode for SD Card access

Two Gigabit Ethernet Ports

Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet

Supports Industrial Ethernet IP cores

172-pin High Speed Mezzanine Card (HSMC)

Configurable I/O standards (voltage levels: 3.3/2.5/1.8/1.5V)

USB Type A and B

Provide host and device controller compliant with USB 2.0

Support data transfer at full-speed and low-speed

PC driver available

40-pin Expansion Port

Configurable I/O standards (voltage levels: 3.3/2.5/1.8/1.5V)

VGA-out Connector

VGA DAC (high speed triple DACs)

DB-9 Serial Connector

RS232 port with flow control

PS/2 Connector

PS/2 connector for connecting a PS2 mouse or keyboard to the DE2-115

Remote Control

Infrared receiver module

TV-in Connector

TV decoder (NTSC/PAL/SECAM)

Power

Desktop DC input

Switching and step-down regulators LM3150MH