Spartan-3A/3AN FPGA Starter Kit Board User Guidewww.xilinx.com 63UG334 (v1.1) June 19, 2008RChapter 7RS-232 Serial PortsOverviewAs shown in Figure 7-1, the Spartan®-3A/3AN FPGA Starter Kit board has two RS-232serial ports: a female DB9 DCE connector and a male DB9 DTE connector. The DCE-styleport connects directly to the serial port connector available on most personal computersand workstations via a standard straight-through serial cable. For typical applications, theboard does not require null modem cables, gender changers, or crossover cables.Use the DTE-style connector to control other RS-232 peripherals, such as modems orprinters, or perform simple loopback testing with the DCE connector.Figure 7-1: RS-232 Serial PortsDTEDCEFPGADCEFemale DB9123456789GND123456789GNDRS232_DTE_RXDRS232_DTE_TXDRS232_DCE_TXDRS232_DCE_RXDDTEMale DB9RS-232 Voltage Translator (IC3)J36 J27(F15)(E16) (E15)(F16)UG334_c7_01_052407Standard9-pin serial cableRS CS TR RD TD CD TALK/DATATALKRS-232 PeripheralStandard9-pin serial cableComputer
