The ByteBlaster™ II download cable allows you to program and configure Altera devices. This cable drives configuration data from a standard parallel printer port on a PC to the device on the PCB. Because design changes are downloaded directly to the device, prototyping is easy and you can accomplish multiple design iterations in quick succession.
Stratix® series FPGAs Cyclone® series FPGAs MAX® series CPLDs Arria™ GX series FPGAs APEX™ series FPGAs ACEX® 1K FPGAs Mercury™ FPGAs FLEX 10K® series FPGAs Excalibur™ FPGAs EPC2, EPC4, EPC8 and EPC16 devices EPCS1, EPCS4, EPCS16, EPCS64 and EPCS128 devices
An FPGA is a semiconductor device consisting of a matrix of Configurable Logic Blocks (CLBs) connected through programmable interconnects. The user determines these interconnections by programming SRAM. A CLB can be simple (AND, OR gates, etc) or complex (a block of RAM). The FPGA allows changes to be made to a design even after the device is soldered into a PCB.