Cyclone V pin-out question

Question

I was planning to ask Altera Support about this, but it seems the support system is off-line right now, for an update, so I figured I might as well post here while I wait. I'm the CAD librarian here, and I'm adding a Cyclone V 896-pin FPGA to our library. The full part number is:

5CEFA7F31C8N

My question has to do with two of the ground pins. Normally, the ground pins will not list any "bank number" in the pin listing, but there are two ground pins on this device that are listed as belonging to a particular bank. Pin E5 has bank 9A listed, and pin G24 shows bank 7A. All the rest of the ground pins (around 200 of them) have the bank column blank. So is this a typo in the pin listing, or is there some significance to the bank listing on these two ground pins?

Thanks,

Tom D.

Cobham AvComm

altera_forum · Answer

Hi,  Which file are you referring to when you are checking on the ground pin? Is it Quartus II .pin file or web's pin list?

altera_forum · Answer

The web based pin list. Here's the link to the specific .xls:

https://www.altera.com/content/dam/altera-www/global/en_us/pdfs/literature/dp/cyclone-v/5cefa7.xls

I just checked it again, to be sure there hasn't been an update to that list, and it still shows pin E5 as bank 9A, and pin G24 as bank 7A. We are using the F31 package.

Thanks,

Tom D.

altera_forum · Answer

I've just had a search through all my project's '.pin' files (as generated by Quartus). It also lists those GND pins as being part of banks 7A & 9A respectively. Interestingly, other devices, in other packages, also have a bank associated with certain GND pins. However, they are all Cyclone V devices and only ever refer to banks 7A & 9A. Bank 9A in Cyclone V hosts various configuration pins. Nothing else stands out as relevant.

I'd be interested to know what Altera say should you get a response. However, materially it's makes no difference - they need to be connected to GND. If I were capturing the symbol I'd be grouping these pins with all the other GND pins and not with any I/O from banks 7A or 9A.

Cheers,

Alex

altera_forum · Answer

Well, here's what Altera support said:  &lt;&lt;begin paste&gt;&gt; hi tom,     i created a simple qii test project that allows us to understand a bit better that those pins are associated with their respective banks and that they are p (power pins) required to be connected to gnd.   you can see this in the tool in three places. 1) fitter report .pin file that e5 is in bank 9a and is gnd, g24 is in bank 7a and is gnd, 2) pin planner shows both pins as a blue p associated to thier respective banks and are gnd. 3) pad view of the pin planner. also associated with their respective banks and are blue p and need to be connected to gnd. notice that this view will show the pins on the edge of the io ring of the bank.   in anticipation that this will give you the info you need, i will place this request in closed pending.   thank you for using myaltera.   -rolando &lt;&lt;end paste&gt;&gt;  i've asked for a little more clarification, since this really didn't explain anything to me. can anyone else make sense of that, and explain it in terms i can understand? :)  i really just want to know if those pins should be broken out from the rest of the 200 ground pins, or not, as far as the schematic symbols go. if they should be, then i really need to have something to add to the labeling (like gnd_pll or something like that). if they not something special, then why are those two the only ones with a bank number listed? i was hoping they would reply and say the bank references in the pin table were there by mistake, and to ignore them. open to suggestions.  tom

altera_forum · Answer

Tom,

The only useful bit of that response is:

--- Quote Start ---

they are P (power pins) required to be connected to GND

--- Quote End ---

which we knew anyway.

I don't see any benefit in separating these pins away from the other GND pins. Perhaps you could annotate your symbol with a reference to the banks, but that's only going to pass the confusion onto the person capturing the schematic.

I hesitate to state they are there by mistake but I think that is very likely.

Cheers,

Alex

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Cyclone V pin-out question

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