The Xilinx Spartan-3A Evaluation Kit provides an easy to use, low cost
platform for experimenting and prototyping applications based on the
Xilinx Spartan-3A FPGA family.
Designed as an entry level kit, first time FPGA designers will find the
board’s functions straight forward and practical, while advanced users
will appreciate some of the unique capabilities included in the board
design. The Spartan-3A board uses the 400.000 gate 3S400A FPGA from
Xilinx. With over 8.000 logic cells available, this FPGA is ideal for exploring general logic designs as well as DSP and MicroBlaze based embedded processing applications. Besides the FPGA, the board also includes a
Cypress PSoC Mixed Signal Array which functions as a “companion chip”
to the Spartan-3A. The PSoC device is pre-configured to enable direct
programming of the FPGA, SPI Flash memory and parallel Flash memory
through a Windows-based programming application. Spansion SPI and
parallel Flash memories are included for FPGA configuration storage,
code storage and data file storage. The board’s cost optimised power
supply from Texas Instruments allows for powering from either a USB
port or a 5V AC/DC wall adapter. Other general purpose peripherals like
switches, LEDs, user I/O and clocks round out the board functions.