Agilex™ 5 FPGA E-Series 013B Development Kit User Guide

ID 860700
Date 9/02/2025
Public
Document Table of Contents

3.3. Modes of Operations

The Agilex™ 5 FPGA E-Series 013B development board is designed to operate in two main modes—in bench-top mode and as a PCIe* add-in card.

In Bench-Top Mode (Default Mode)

You only need to connect a USB-PD compliant power adapter to J8 to power on the board and run the example designs included in the development kit. The example designs allow you to evaluate the functionality of various provided features of this development kit. In this mode, you can also use the Agilex™ 5 FPGA E-Series 013B development board to interface with and create custom FPGA designs for various Raspberry Pi* 4/5 HAT boards and Digilent Pmod* (peripheral module) boards for those respective ecosystems.
Note: The Raspberry Pi* HAT board and Digilent Pmod peripherals share the same HVIO banks so only one add-in board can be used at a time.
Figure 7. Optional Raspberry Pi* HAT and Digilent Pmod Boards Attached

As a PCIe* Add-in Card

To convert the Agilex™ 5 FPGA E-Series 013B development board into a PCIe* add-in card, you must purchase the optional Altera PCIe* 3.0 x1 gold finger daughter card and mount it to this board. The PCIe* gold finger daughter card kit includes the PCIe* I/O bracket and all necessary hardware to convert the Agilex™ 5 FPGA E-Series 013B development board into a PCIe* add-in card.
Note: Power for the development kit must still be provided by the USB-PD power adapter because the Altera PCIe* 3.0 x1 gold finger daughter card does not pass power from the PCIe* slot to power the Agilex™ 5 FPGA E-Series 013B development board.
Figure 8. Optional Altera PCIe* 3.0 x1 Gold Finger Daughter Board and PCIe* I/O Bracket Attached
When operating the card in a PCIe* system, insert the card into an available PCIe* slot and connect a USB-PD compliant power to connector J8 as described previously. All power for the Agilex™ 5 FPGA E-Series 013B Development Kit are derived from the external USB-PD power supply.
Note:
  1. When operating as a PCIe* add-in card, the board does not power on unless power is supplied to J8 and switch SW3 is ON as described previously.
  2. When operating as a PCIe* add-in card, Altera does not recommend that you attach a Raspberry Pi* HAT because the added height of the HAT board can interfere with the adjacent PCIe* cards in the PCIe* system.
  3. When used as a PCIe* add-in card inserted into a PCIe* server, Altera does not recommend that you attach additional PCIe* cards in adjacent slots of the same server. This is because overcrowding between two adjacent PCIe* daughter cards may affect signal performance.