Spartan-3E Reference Manual

Note

The Spartan-3E Starter Board is retired and no longer for sale in our store.

The Spartan-3E Starter Board provides a powerful and highly advanced self-contained development platform for designs targeting the Spartan-3E FPGA from Xilinx. It features a 500K gate Spartan-3E FPGA with a 32-bit RISC processor and DDR interfaces.

Download The User Guide

Features

  • Xilinx XC3S500E Spartan-3E FPGA
    • Up to 232 user-I/O pins
    • 320-pin FBGA package
    • Over 10,000 logic cells
  • Xilinx 4 Mbit Platform Flash configuration PROM
  • Xilinx 64-macrocell XC2C64A CoolRunner CPLD
  • 64 MByte (512 Mbit) of DDR SDRAM, x16 data interface, 100+ MHz
  • 16 MByte (128 Mbit) of parallel NOR Flash (Intel StrataFlash)
    • FPGA configuration storage
    • MicroBlaze code storage/shadowing
  • 16 Mbits of SPI serial Flash (STMicro)
    • FPGA configuration storage
    • MicroBlaze code shadowing
  • 2-line, 16-character LCD screen
  • PS/2 mouse or keyboard port
  • VGA display port
  • 10/100 Ethernet PHY (requires Ethernet MAC in FPGA)
  • Two 9-pin RS-232 ports (DTE- and DCE-style)
  • On-board USB-based FPGA/CPLD download/debug interface
  • 50 MHz clock oscillator
  • SHA-1 1-wire serial EEPROM for bitstream copy protection
  • Hirose FX2 expansion connector
  • Three Digilent 6-pin expansion connectors
  • Four-output, SPI-based Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC)
  • Two-input, SPI-based Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) with programmable-gain pre-amplifier
  • ChipScope™ SoftTouch debugging port
  • Rotary-encoder with push-button shaft
  • Eight discrete LEDs
  • Four slide switches
  • Four push-button switches
  • SMA clock input
  • 8-pin DIP socket for auxiliary clock oscillator