FPGA download cables

FPGA vendors provide many ways to "configure" (i.e. download) their devices. One way is using a cable that connects from your PC to the FPGA board. The most popular cables connect to your PC's parallel or USB interface.

These cables are sometimes called "JTAG cables" (because they often connect to the JTAG pins of an FPGA).

Cable power

The cable is an active device and needs power. It is usually powered from the target FPGA board.

FPGA cables are vendor specific

The FPGA configuration interface from all the FPGA vendors are very much alike. That doesn't prevent each vendor to have their own proprietary connectors and cables.

Parallel cable

A parallel cable connects to your PC's parallel (printer) port. It buffers a few pins of the PC parallel interface, and connects to the target board using a flat cable or flying leads.
FPGA vendors sometimes provide the schematic of the cable, which is valuable since these cable are worth otherwise $100 or more!

• Altera parallel cable are the ByteBlasterMV, and the newer ByteBlaster II.
• Xilinx parallel cable is called Parallel cable III (schematic only). See also the cables Hardware user guide and the Parallel Cables page.

More cables

• The complete list of Altera cables can be found here.
  • The USB-Blaster is small and nice.
  • The EthernetBlaster is nice, if a little bulky.


• The complete list of Xilinx cables can be found here.
  • The Platform Cable USB seems nice (I haven't had the chance to try this one).

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This page was last updated on April 07 2007.