This is good news for a lot of folks – the guys and gals at Altium have added the low-cost, high power Altera Cyclone III FPGA to their NanoBoard 3000 range of radical FPGA-based development boards.

As you will doubtless recall, last September Altium announced a radical new approach to rapid prototyping with the NanoBoard 3000. The company has now expanded this concept, announcing a new NanoBoard 3000 hosting the Altera Cyclone III FPGA.

The new board continues to provide electronics designers with the same hardware, software and ready-to-use, royalty-free IP of the NanoBoard 3000, but with the power of Altera’s low-cost, high power Cyclone III FPGA at its core.

With the NanoBoard 3000, electronics designers have everything they need to design and deploy sophisticated FPGA-based designs. Complete with hardware and software, the NanoBoard 3000 eliminates the need to search the web for drivers, peripherals or other software. It is a low-risk, low-cost design alternative for electronics designers looking to move beyond the constraints of fixed hardware.

"As we said last September, electronics designers without any prior FPGA skills can use the NanoBoard 3000 to construct sophisticated ‘soft’ processor-based systems inside the FPGA," said Nick Martin, CEO of Altium.

"Using their existing board layout skills and Altium’s intuitive graphical interface, electronics designers can construct, test and implement entire FPGA-based embedded systems. This new addition to the range provides the perfect entry point for electronics designers, as it exploits the low-cost, high power benefits of the Altera Cyclone III in an easy-to-use and easy-to-deploy electronics design environment."

The new NanoBoard 3000AL and NanoBoard 3000XN (hosting the Xilinx Spartan 3 FPGA) cost just US$395, including software, hardware, and Altium’s royalty-free IP. Electronics designers can also exploit Altium’s vast range of learning materials and reference designs to get them up and running immediately.

Designers looking to deploy their designs can also purchase one of Altium’s modular commercial enclosures. Available in a variety of sizes, the modular commercial enclosures will let designers go from prototype to deployment in a single step by simply snapping the NanoBoard 3000 into the enclosure.

For more information on the NanoBoard range, including the latest NanoBoard 3000AL, visit Altium’s wiki or www.altium.com/nanoboard3000.

Pricing and availability
The NanoBoard 3000 is available for a recommended retail price of US$395 and includes a 12-month subscription to an Altium Designer Soft Design License which also includes all software updates released by Altium during the 12-month subscription period. Users of the latest release of Altium Designer can also use the NanoBoard 3000.

Designers can purchase a NanoBoard 3000 from Newark at: www.newark.com/altium.