FPGA Development Board Hardware and I/O Features

Chapter 2 provides an overview of the various FPGA development boards. The features of each board are briefly described. Several tables listing pin connections of various I/O devices serve as an essential reference whenever a hardware design is implemented on the DE1, DE2, UP3, or UP 2 FPGA boards.

Each of the five different FPGA boards (DE1, DE1, UP3, UP2, and UP1) have a slightly different feature set of logic, I/O interfaces, memory and other assorted hardware. As long as the FPGA board has enough logic and it has the required I/O features, a project can be implemented on any of the boards.

FPGAs are available in a wide range of sizes with different feature sets. In general, FPGAs with more logic, more I/O pins, higher speed, or more memory are more expensive. When designing new products, choosing the FPGA with the proper feature set at the lowest cost is an important design consideration.