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Altium LiveDesign and SPI DAC

I have the Altium LiveDesign board since its release in 2004.  It is a nice board that works with the Altium Designer software but I use it with the Altera Quartus. The board was released in both Xilinx and Altera versions but I bought the Altera one. It is fitted with the Altera Cyclone EP1C12. The specification can be easily found on the internet but the one thing that is missing is the ADC/DAC. The idea is to use an 10bit SPI DAC from Maxim (MAX504). This IC is able to work with bipolar supply and the output is in range of +-2.048V. The only problem was the voltage levels between the DAC and the board (5V and 3,3V) but a nice SN74LVC244 buffer will do the trick. The bipolar power lines will be done using the Aimtec DC-DC converter. A final amplifier stage will change 4mV/bit  to a nicer 5 or 10mv/bit. The output will be a BNC connector and the board will be covered with a plexiglas with a description (this will also stabilize the board). During the weekend I will prepare all the order for parts as I want to build two more boards. One will be for delivering an external clock and the second one will be a Microchip UNI/O memory board.

Categories: FPGA
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