WTB (UK): DE0-Nano Development

[alin_im]

Hi guys,

i am a student and i wanted to buy a starter level fpga that works with altera quartus 2 (program that i use at uni). Any one has a DE0-Nano Development for sell under 60 dollars/40 pounds any ideas of other FPGAs good for starters???

[miguelvp]

You could go with the BeMicro CV from Arrow for $49 and 25,000  LE (Logic Elements):
https://parts.arrow.com/item/detail/arrow-development-tools/bemicrocv

This board is similar to the Nano in capabilities but of course there are less demos/sample code so I'm not sure how it will suit someone starting up, but the price is right and it's big enough.

For even cheaper $30 you could get a BeMicro MAX10 with just 8,000 LEs, but that is enough to start with, again not that much sample code and guides compared to the Terasic boards. So I don't know if it will impose any barriers for someone starting up.

http://parts.arrow.com/item/detail/arrow-development-tools/bemicromax10

What is cool about the Max 10 is that it offers non-volatile configuration so it's ready on boot and it offers dual boot as well.

They do have a wiki with some sample code and other information:
http://www.alterawiki.com/wiki/BeMicro_MAX_10

There is also free training courses from Altera, I'll find the link, but you will have to modify the examples to fit your board.
I'll update this thread when I find the fpga curriculum, which I posted before on some old threads.

[miguelvp]

And both of those have an edge connector, they do sell an interposer but it's pricey ($50 as I recall) but I found a source for the connector and posted in another thread:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/altera-max10-fpgas/msg522299/#msg522299

I got two of those last week.  Haven't had a chance to play with them yet.  They are almost small FPGA breakout boards but not quite.

If you need the extra pins, sources for the edge connector:
http://www.findchips.com/search/MEC614002
http://octopart.com/partsearch#!?q=MEC614002

The Max10 might be too small for your needs, but the CV is bigger and has more memory than the nano.

[miguelvp]

Regarding the BeMicro CV I did write a small tutorial based on a schematic top for someone that was asking about it:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/bemicro-cv-questions/msg524041/#msg524041

Regarding the tutorials from altera the link is on that thread but I'll link it here as well:
http://www.altera.com/education/training/curriculum/fpga/trn-fpga.html
Edit: it seems Altera changed their page, the curriculum is now somewhere else:
https://www.altera.com/support/training/curricula.html