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).

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.

• The complete list of Altera cables can be found here.
  • The most popular one is the USB-Blaster.
  • Altera parallel cable are the ByteBlasterMV and ByteBlaster II.


• The complete list of Xilinx cables can be found here.
  • The most popular one is the Platform Cable USB (and its PDF).
  • Xilinx parallel cable is called Parallel cable III. See also the cables Hardware user guide and the Parallel Cables page.

About parallel cables: 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. The parallel cable is an active device and needs power. It is usually powered from the target FPGA board. FPGA vendors sometimes provide the schematic of the cable, which is valuable if you want to build a cable yourself.

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This page was last updated on July 04 2009.