Using Cyclone 3 chip on PCB

[Gerrit151]

Hi,

I am pretty new into IC stuff and due to the corona have less and less students to discuss how things work.

Currently I am trying to design a PCB board with an accelerometer and a readout IC and need to do the digital part on an FPGA.
But due to the PCB space and have everything on one PCB board it seems a better way to have the cyclone iii chip on the PCB and communicate.

Instead of having the whole FPGA as in:
https://www.digikey.nl/product-detail/nl/terasic-inc/P0037/P0037-ND/2138840

As this occupies a lot of space and in the measurement test setup the FPGA does not fit anymore, so long wires have to be used.

Does someone know if there is a guideline on how to do this? As in only use the Cyclone iii on a PCB board?
I have heard about JTAG which could be used? But at this moment I have no clue on how to start using only the chip instead of the whole development board.

Best regards,
Gerrit

[Daixiwen]

You will need to read a lot of documentation to be sure you cover everything needed for the component. You can start with the design guidelines:
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/programmable/us/en/pdfs/literature/an/an466.pdf
But you will also need to read the handbook.

The FPGA requires several power supplies, so you will need some DC/DC converters. You also need good decoupling and a good ground plane. The PCB needs to be at least 4 layers but if you are using a BGA FPGA and don't have a lot of experience routing FPGA boards it will be easier with 6/8 layers.

The JTAG interface will make it a lot easier to debug and program the board, so you should include it. You will also need a flash configuration component if you want the final board to be automatically configured during power up without requiring a PC connected to the JTAG interface.

You can have a look at the development board schematic, it is a very good starting point for a custom PCB.

[Scrts]

I'd say go for a development kit that allows interfacing "shields". E.g. this one: https://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=218&No=708
Then put accelerometer Arduino shield on it and that's it. Once done - you can try another shields.

[ebclr]

This is bare minimum example , The chip can't work alone,  need clock and flash  to store  the bit stream

http://electrobist.com/product/fpga-cyclone-ii-ep2c5t144-minimum-system-development-board/

[Scrts]

AFAIK Cyclone 3 is no longer supported in the free tier of latest Quartus, so either you'd have to use an older version, or to pay up.
I would go for Cyclone IV as it is currently the main FPGA used by a lot of designs, meaning you can get cheap factory leftovers from China for very cheap.

Or MAX10.

[Daixiwen]

Yes the Max10 is a good alternative. It's an FPGA inside, but it also includes the configuration flash so you don't need to put one on the PCB. I think it is also easier to supply power to than the Cyclones.