Category Archives: Development boards

Arrival of the DE0-Nano

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My DE0-Nano finally arrived from Terasic,

this cute little development board cost me about $60 (or $100 without student discount), I had to wrangle a bit with FedEx to get it (You wait in all day for them, but the second you step out they arrive) but it’s finally here

I’m not the biggest fan of unboxing videos (mainly because I get jealous of what people unwrap) but I decided to throw one up to show everyone what you get and compare it to my old DE1 which I got about 5 or 6 years ago.

This board is not recommended for those unfamiliar with Altera technology or even FPGA/CPLD technology in general, it doesn’t come with a huge array of flashy lights or switched, if you want that then go for the DE0 (non-nano flavour) or if you want the full experience, look at the DE2 kit’s, they have plenty to play with. This one is designed for those who want to specifically attach their own circuits.

The De0-Nano consists:

  • Altera Cyclone IV FPGA which contains about 22,320 Logic Elements, 4 PLL’s, among other things.
  • 32MB SDRAM
  • 2Kb I2C EEPROM
  • 8 LED’s (Green), 2 pushbuttons, and 4 switch dipswitch.
  • ADI ADXL345 13-Bit 3-axis high resolution accelerometer
  • NS ADC128S022 12-Bit x 8-Channel ADC up to 200ksps

All in all, some nice toys to play with in a small package.

I’ll be definitely playing with this board and doing some more videos and blogs about it.

More info about the DE0-Nano can be found here on Terasic’s DE0-Nano page