DE0 Nano Intro

DE0 Nano Intro.

For those of you out there who want to learn about the world of programmed logic but are not experienced enough to Build Your Own CPLD Dev-Board, you’re in luck because a fairly cheap but very powerful FPGA development board is now on the market. It’s called the DE0 Nano!

This article will take a look at how to get Altera’s IDE: Quartus II installed onto a computer and how we use Quartus II to make an FPGA program, compile it and get it onto the DE0 Nano’s Cyclone IV FPGA. The DE0 Nano has many peripherals like an Accelerometer, RAM, A/D converter and more, but we’ll stay with the basics for this intro.

A great introduction to using the DE0 Nano FPGA board.


De0Nano Lrg

DE0-Nano – Altera Cyclone IV FPGA starter board. For every day projects, microcontrollers are low-cost and easy to use. But when you have a project that needs raw power and high speed you may want to check out FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays). FPGAs are like raw chips that you can design by hand. They run very fast and very efficiently. They are designed for mass-parallel execution so they’re very good at handling a lot of I/O pins at once, especially for real time video or audio or emulation applications.

De0Nanotop Lrg

FPGAs are also a lot of fun, in that you really get to play with how chips are designed. Unfortunately, we didn’t study FPGA’s in school and so we missed out on learning how to use them. When we saw this Altera starter pack, we thought it would be a great first FPGA board – compact but not ‘bare bones’ – at a great price! There’s no paper book included, but there is a very detailed Altera FPGA training curriculum that a student could use as part of a self-taught FPGA adventure.

De0Nanoback Lrg

The package comes with a single DE0 Nano development board, mini USB cable (you can program and power the module over USB) and two CDs with the software necessary to ‘compile’ and ‘upload’ code to the board. The software is available for Windows and Linux computers (no Mac)

The module itself contains a nice collection of accessories:

  • Altera Cyclone IV FPGA (EP4CE22F17C6N)
    • 22,320 Logic elements (LEs)
    • 594 Embedded memory (Kbits)
    • 66 Embedded 18 x 18 multipliers
    • 4 General-purpose PLLs
    • 153 Maximum FPGA I/O pins
  • 50 MHz clock oscillator
  • 8-channel 12-bit Analog/Digital converter (NS ADC128S022)
  • 32 MB SDRAM
  • On-board USB blaster programming interface
  • USB mini-AB port
  • 2Kb I2C EEPROM
  • 4 DIP switches
  • 8 Green LEDs
  • ADXL345 3-axis Accelerometer
  • Two 40-pin IDC-compatible headers provides 72 general purpose I/O pins
  • One 26-pin header provides 16 digital I/O pins and 8 analog input pins to connect to analog sensors

To connect to the IDC headers, we suggest picking up a 40-pin female/female socket cable which will let you connect external sensors to the module once you’ve exhausted the on-board accessories

In stock and shipping now!


Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards

Join Adafruit on Mastodon

Adafruit is on Mastodon, join in! adafruit.com/mastodon

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 36,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


Maker Business — “Packaging” chips in the US

Wearables — Enclosures help fight body humidity in costumes

Electronics — Transformers: More than meets the eye!

Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Silicon Labs introduces CircuitPython support, and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

Adafruit IoT Monthly — Guardian Robot, Weather-wise Umbrella Stand, and more!

Microsoft MakeCode — MakeCode Thank You!

EYE on NPI — Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — #NewProds 7/19/23 Feat. Adafruit Matrix Portal S3 CircuitPython Powered Internet Display!

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !



No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.