Altera Nios II Embedded Evaluation Kit Cyclone III Edition - Manual (Page 7)

Altera Corporation Development Board Version 1.0. 1–1
July 2010 Preliminary
1. Getting Started
Introduction The Altera ® Nios ® II Embedded Evaluation Kit, Cyclone ® III Edition
includes a full-featured FPGA development board, LCD Multimedia
High Speed Mezzanine Card (HSMC), hardware and software
development tools, documentation, and accessories needed to begin
embedded and system on a programmable chip (SOPC) designs using
FPGAs.
The development board includes an Altera Cyclone III FPGA and comes
preconfigured with an FPGA hardware reference design stored in flash
memory as well as several ready-to-run demonstration applications
stored on the SD-Card Flash provided. Hardware designers can use the
FPGA reference design as a platform to build complex embedded
systems. Software developers can use the hardware reference design plus
sample software applications as a starting point for their own
applications.
Success for an embedded system start rights from the evaluation stage.
Choosing the right platform, development tools, operating systems may
be the difference between success and failure. The Altera Nios II
Embedded Evaluation Kit, Cyclone III Edition is an evaluation kit that
enables you to make these critical decisions with minimal investment.
The Nios II Embedded Evaluation Kit, Cyclone III Edition makes
evaluating Altera’s embedded solutions easy. Processor systems
targeting the low-cost, low-power Cyclone III FPGA can be evaluated by
simply using the LCD Color Touch Panel to scroll through and load your
demonstration of choice.
These processor systems showcase the unique benefits of FPGA-based
processors such as reducing BOM costs by integrating powerful graphics
engines within the FPGA, reducing operating costs by upgrading your
system over the Internet, or increasing system performance while
reducing power using
C-to-Hardware (C2H) acceleration.