Terasic DEnano review (ALTERA MAX II Micro Kit)

Terasic is well-known vendor for ALTERA FPGA solutions, including various development board and modules.
One of these, DE-nano (not to confuse with DE0-nano) or later called MAX II Micro Kit will be given a brief review today:

It feature Altera MAX® II EPM2210F324 CPLD device and next onboard gear:

  • USB Blaster (on board) for programming;
  • 4 pushbutton switches
  • 2 red user LEDs
  • 2 yellow user LEDs
  • 2 green user LEDs
  • 2 blue user LEDs
  • 50-MHz oscillator for clock sources
  • Powered by a USB cable (Type-A-Male to Type-A-Female)

MAX II Micro can be used as a USB Blaster, and programming mode supported depends on the configuration device of Altera board connected to MAX II Micro (Only JTAG programming mode is supported to configure MAX II Micro).

CDROM for Terasic MMK – 3.5MB, contains schematics, datasheets, simple example and control panel app.

Here also brief photoset covering onboard peripherals and construction:

Kit:

Board itself:

“ !http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/TOP_1.jpg!”:“http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/TOP.jpg “ !http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/BOT_1.jpg!”:http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/BOT.jpg

MAX EPM2210 device used is largest LE variant, in BGA256 package.

“ !http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/bga_1.JPG!”:“http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/bga.JPG “ !http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/cpld_1.JPG!”:http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/cpld.JPG

Board shipped already pre-programmed with simple LED example:

“ !http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/DEMO_1.jpg!”:“http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/DEMO.jpg “ !http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/dual_1.jpg!”:http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/dual.jpg

Another ALTERA MAX3128 and FTDI USB chip are used for onboard USB-Blaster implementation.

“ !http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/jtag_1.JPG!”:“http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/jtag.JPG “ !http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/USB_1.jpg!”:http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/USB.jpg

External use of USB Blaster for JTAG programming is possible with simple soldering on 2.54mm pitch 10-pin header

“ !http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/hires_1.JPG!”:“http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/hires.JPG “ !http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/overview_1.jpg!”:http://doc.xdevs.com/doc/Terasic/DEnano/img/overview.jpg

Author:
Created: July 31, 2015, 4:55 a.m.
Modified: Jan. 27, 2016, 3:48 a.m.