FPGA Intellectual Property
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Looking for free IPs

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Hi, 

 

I am new to Altera forum and Altera FPGAs in general. I have the following queries pls. 

 

** Like Xilinx Core generator, does Altera Quartus 2 give free IPs as well? If so, what is the name of the core generator interface and is there a list of free IPs (preferably in VHDL) which one can  

use? 

 

** What is the difference between web edition and pro edition. 

 

Thanks, 

 

Arvind Gupta
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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IP Base Suite: https://www.altera.com/products/intellectual-property/design/q_and_a.html 

 

Included with standard and pro editions of the software. You can get a license to use it with the Lite edition. 

 

Here's a comparison of the different editions: https://www.altera.com/content/dam/altera-www/global/en_us/pdfs/literature/po/ss-quartus-comparison.pdf 

 

There is no web edition anymore. It is now called the Lite edition.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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OK... are the basic IPs not free...?I am looking for tit bits like LCD controller, SPI master/slave, I2c etc.  

 

Thanks and Regards, 

Arvind Gupta
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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The IP base suite is for more advanced IPs such as Ethernet or DRAM controllers. You will find GPIOS and SPI master/slaves in the embedded ips (https://www.altera.com/content/dam/altera-www/global/en_us/pdfs/literature/ug/ug_embedded_ip.pdf) and most of them are free. There is an I2C core on the altera wiki (http://www.alterawiki.com/wiki/i2c_(opencores)). For LCD I'm not sure there is a dedicated controller but you can use a GPIO and bit bang it (or use an LCD with an I2C interface).

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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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You could always take have a go with the lottery of stuff on opencores.org aswell. Though from what Ive seen there they are hobbiest projects with poor documentation and poor quality code formatting/commenting, and little support. 

 

Otherwise take the plunge and write your own - good learning experience.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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If you are a student learning about FPGA using one of the DE-series boards, you can get free IP for the boards via the university program installer: 

https://www.altera.com/support/training/university/materials-ip-cores.html
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