Specifications

CHAPTER 11: PROGRAMMING & CONFIGURATION
INTRODUCTION
184 ■ INTRODUCTION TO QUARTUS II ALTERA CORPORATION
The Programmer uses the POFs and SOFs generated by the Assembler to
program or configure all Altera devices supported by the Quartus II
software. You use the Programmer with Altera programming hardware,
such as the MasterBlaster
™
, ByteBlasterMV
™
, ByteBlaster
™
II, USB-Blaster
™
,
or EthernetBlaster download cable; or the Altera Programming Unit (APU).
The Programmer allows you to create a Chain Description File (.cdf) that
contains the name and options of devices used for a design. You can also
open a MAX+PLUS II JTAG Chain File (.jcf) or FLEX Chain File (.fcf) and
save it in the Quartus II Programmer as a CDF.
For some programming modes that allow programming or configuring
multiple devices, the CDF also specifies top-to-bottom order of the SOFs,
POFs, Jam Files, Jam Byte-Code Files, and devices used for a design, as well
as the order of the devices in the chain. Figure 2 shows the Programmer
window.
Figure 2. Programmer Window
!
Using the Stand-Alone Programmer
If you want to use only the Quartus II Programmer, you can install the stand-alone
version of the Quartus II Programmer, quartus_pgmw, instead of installing the
complete Quartus II software.