Specifications

Altera Corporation 1–3
October 2007
Nios II Hardware Development Tutorial Introduction
■ Design files for the example design – A hyperlink to the design files
appears next to this document on the Nios II literature page. Visit
www.altera.com/literature/lit-nio2.jsp.
You can build the example design in this tutorial whether you own a
development board or not. This tutorial allows you to choose from the
following target board options:
■ No board – If you do not have a target board, you can still use the
tutorial, but you will not witness the example design running on
hardware. Instead, you simulate software running on the Nios II
instruction set simulator (ISS).
■ Nios development board – If you have an Altera Nios II development
kit, use the board included in the kit. In this case, you also must have
the DC power supply and download cable provided with the kit,
such as the USB-Blaster™ cable. The following Altera kits are
supported:
● Nios II Development Kit, Stratix
®
II Edition
● Nios II Development Kit, Stratix Edition
● Nios II Development Kit, Stratix Professional Edition
● Nios II Development Kit, Cyclone™ II Edition
● Nios II Development Kit, Cyclone Edition
f For information on Nios II development kits, visit www.altera.com/
devkits.
■ Custom board – You can use this tutorial with any board that meets
the following requirements:
● The board must have an Altera FPGA.
● The FPGA must meet the following density requirements,
depending on the device family:
• Any Stratix III or Stratix II device
• Stratix EP1S10 device or larger
• Any Cyclone III or Cyclone II device
• Cyclone EP1C12 device or larger
● An oscillator must drive a constant clock frequency to an FPGA
pin. The maximum frequency limit depends on the speed grade
of the FPGA. Frequencies of 50 MHz or less should work for
most boards; higher frequencies might work.
● The board must have a 10-pin header connected to the dedicated
JTAG pins on the FPGA to provide a communication link to the
Nios II system.
● FPGA I/O pins can optionally connect to 8 (or fewer) LEDs to
provide a visual indicator of processor activity.
● You must have an Altera USB-Blaster download cable, revision
B or higher. Prior cables might exhibit communication errors