GPIO on Qsys

[Altera_Forum]

Hi, 

 I am using the Quartus web edition to program a DEO-Nano board. I intend to use the GPIO header of the board to send data to a DDS. I wanted to use Qsys to design it but I can't find the GPIO headers in the Library. Am I supposed to add a new component and if so, what details should I fill in the component type? I'm sorry if this is a trivial question, I am very new to Qartus (or FPGAs for that matter).  Thanks!

[Altera_Forum]

Run through these two example designs; 

 Post#2: de0_nano_basic.zip  http://www.alteraforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39765  Post#2: de0_nano_sdram.zip http://www.alteraforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45927  This example contains a Qsys system and uses GPIO, so will have features similar to what you are looking for.  In your case, where you want to communicate with a DDS, you will need to determine what the DDS interface protocol is, eg., is it a serial interface like SPI, or is it a parallel interface. If you have a part number, I can look at the data sheet and comment on what you would need to do.  Cheers, Dave

[Altera_Forum]

Dear Dave, 

 Thanks for the quick reply. I am using the AD9910 DDS and it has parallel interface. So to have my DDS output frequencies really fast, I want to transfer the data in parallel. This might be asking for a bit much, but do you happen to know any examples that I can look at to interface a DDS with an FPGA. Thanks!

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---   Thanks for the quick reply. I am using the AD9910 DDS and it has parallel interface. So to have my DDS output frequencies really fast, I want to transfer the data in parallel. This might be asking for a bit much, but do you happen to know any examples that I can look at to interface a DDS with an FPGA. Thanks!  --- Quote End ---   The AD9910 does not look that different from the AD9956, it just has a higher operating frequency. Read through the documentation on this page;  https://www.ovro.caltech.edu/~dwh/carma_board/  specifically the AD9956 test report.  Cheers, Dave