Arrow has evaluation board for Altera Nios II processors

The aim for both companies is to address early-stage FPGA design issues, and in particular where hardware engineers may not be familiar with FPGAs with embedded soft-core processors.

"Using this proof-of-concept board, hardware engineers can see first hand, in a quick and cost-effective manner, how FPGAs along with soft-core processors can be a viable alternative to fixed-function application specific standard parts (ASSPs)," said Chris Balough, senior director of software, embedded and DSP marketing at Altera.

The evaluation board, called BeMicro, features an Altera Cyclone III FPGA and Nios II embedded processor and is offred in a USB stick form factor. 

Arrow and Altera demonstrated the BeMicro evaluation board for the first time this week at the Embedded Systems Conference Expo in Boston.

The distributor is also running a series of design workhops featuring BeMicro which come to Europe from October.