HW‑SPAR3E‑SK‑EU – Xilinx Spartan‑3E 500 Starter Kit

Description

The Spartan-3E 500 starter kit is a complete development platform for designing and testing FPGA-based systems using the Spartan-3E family. The main board includes the XC3S500E FPGA (over 10,000 logic cells, up to 232 I/O lines), 64 MB DDR SDRAM (x16 interface), 16 MB NOR Flash, 16 Mbit SPI Flash, and a 4 Mbit Platform Flash PROM configuration device. The board also integrates a 64-macrocell XC2C64A CPLD from the CoolRunner family.

The kit provides a wide range of peripheral interfaces: VGA port, PS/2 port, two RS-232 ports (DTE and DCE), 10/100 Mb/s Ethernet PHY, SMA clock input, and expansion connectors — Hirose FX2 and three Digilent 6-pin ports. A built-in 2×16 character LCD display enables direct data presentation from the FPGA. Additional user I/O includes 4 buttons, 4 slide switches, 8 LEDs, and a rotary encoder with push button. For analog applications, the board offers an SPI-based ADC (2 inputs) and DAC (4 outputs).

The integrated USB interface supports programming and debugging of both FPGA and CPLD. The kit also supports intellectual property protection through a 1-wire SHA-1 EEPROM. An external oscillator can be connected via a DIP socket, and debugging can be performed using the ChipScope SoftTouch port.

Properties

• Model: HW-SPAR3E-SK-EU
• FPGA: Xilinx XC3S500E (over 10,000 logic cells, up to 232 I/O lines)
• CPLD: Xilinx XC2C64A CoolRunner (64 macrocells)
• DDR SDRAM: 64 MB, x16 interface, >100 MHz
• NOR Flash: 16 MB
• SPI Flash: 16 Mbit
• Configuration: 4 Mbit Platform Flash PROM
• Display: LCD 2×16 characters
• Communication ports: 2× RS-232, Ethernet 10/100 Mb/s (PHY), PS/2, VGA
• Analog interfaces: DAC (4 SPI outputs), ADC (2 SPI inputs with programmable gain)
• User I/O: 8 LEDs, 4 slide switches, 4 buttons, rotary encoder with push button
• Clocking: 50 MHz oscillator, SMA input, DIP socket for external oscillator
• Security: 1-wire SHA-1 EEPROM
• Expansion connectors: Hirose FX2, 3× Digilent 6-pin
• Programming/debugging: USB interface, ChipScope SoftTouch port

Included

• Spartan-3E development board
• 100–240 V AC power supply (50/60 Hz)
• Evaluation software (Xilinx ISE & EDK on CD)
• Resource CD (documentation, application notes)
• Schematics
• USB cable