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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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12 years ago

DE0_Nano: bad PLL jitter

I implemented Terasic's "My First FPGA" tutorial, and the 5Mhz PLL output is erratic.

The project uses an ALTPLL to divide the onboard 50MHz oscillator down to 5MHz.

I routed the clock to a GPIO and monitor with my logic analyzer.

But the GPIO output wavers between 4 and 6 MHz (clock is high/low for: 83ns, 83ns, 1167ns, 83ns, 83ns, 1167ns, ...)

I used the Megafunction Wizard to add the ALTPLL. My input is 50 MHz, output is 5 MHz, ratio 1/10, duty cycle 50%. All options are disabled (reset on loss of lock, etc). I'm routing to GPIO_10 / PIN_F13, if that matters.

Am I missing something? I'm pretty confident in the Logic analyzer; 5MHz is well within its bandwidth.

The jitter doesn't matter for LEDs, but now I'm trying to clock serial data into an IC on a breadboard, and it's become annoying.

Thanks,

Sean

1 Reply

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor

    Shouldn't happen. I would monitor PLL locked signal to get additional information.

    Self-reset at least won't hurt. I'm not absolutely sure how the PLL works without a global reset.