Actel has introduced low-cost starter kits for the company's low-power Igloo nano FPGAs. The Igloo nano kits can be used for prototyping designs targeted to nano FPGAs or lower cost ProASIC3 nano FPGAs in all logic densities. The nano kits and ProASIC3 nano devices are footprint compatible with families and enables flexibility in device selection. When designing a handheld product that requires a 3x3mm chip, or a portable medical product that requires more density and performance, the company provides wide selection of nano-power, nano-priced, nano-sized devices to meet the power-conscious application needs.
The nano starter kit includes a development board featuring an Igloo AGLN250V2-ZVQG100 device, a programming stick, user's guide, tutorial and design examples. Intended for use with the company's Libero development tools, the kit offers simple connections to LEDs and switches to implement a sample design with all I/Os available for connection to external systems or applications. The board is programmed using a USB connection, through the programming stick attached to the Igloo nano board. The nano board contains a separate USB connection to a UART for implementing a hyper terminal connection to a personal computer, allowing data to flow to and fro the computer. This feature enables sophisticated data control of a programmed application running on the nano device.
