Forum Discussion
Cyclone V PLL issues
- 5 years ago
The PLL is now working.
This PCB has been a little disaster. VCCBat was left unconnected so we couldn't program the device. This was drilled through from the bottom (the joys of BGAs) to the copper pad under the solder ball and a connection made. Unfortunately made to the FPGA 3.3V supply. Why 3.3V? Because it was convenient and was within the max working voltage on VCCBat.
We also discovered that the Vref pins are left disconnected. These should be connected to GND or the respective bank power supply and it's not clear what leaving them floating will have?
The 3.1V on the RREF_TL was perhaps an indicatio there was a problem and perhaps connected in some way to VCCBat.
After some careful moving of the power to VCCBat from 3.3V to 2.5V I noted the voltage on RREF_TL pin was now at 0.7V, and after loading a basic test SOF file the PLL now works.
Many thanks for your post. T5 is connected as per the rest of the VCC_FPLL pins. I was noting an anomaly on a data sheet that caused me some concern.
Hi @Mikexx
Im not sure about the VCC_FPLL there? Do you mean you already have it connected correctly to T5 (in fact there is a bunch of them
| M3 |
| T3 |
| T5 |
| F4 |
| U18 |
| H19 |
Is it all the pll are not working?
Is it intermittent locking/not-locking?
Is it only 148.5Mhz is not locking? Changing to other output frequency works?
- Mikexx5 years ago
Occasional Contributor
The PLL is now working.
This PCB has been a little disaster. VCCBat was left unconnected so we couldn't program the device. This was drilled through from the bottom (the joys of BGAs) to the copper pad under the solder ball and a connection made. Unfortunately made to the FPGA 3.3V supply. Why 3.3V? Because it was convenient and was within the max working voltage on VCCBat.
We also discovered that the Vref pins are left disconnected. These should be connected to GND or the respective bank power supply and it's not clear what leaving them floating will have?
The 3.1V on the RREF_TL was perhaps an indicatio there was a problem and perhaps connected in some way to VCCBat.
After some careful moving of the power to VCCBat from 3.3V to 2.5V I noted the voltage on RREF_TL pin was now at 0.7V, and after loading a basic test SOF file the PLL now works.
Many thanks for your post. T5 is connected as per the rest of the VCC_FPLL pins. I was noting an anomaly on a data sheet that caused me some concern.
- JonWay_altera5 years ago
Frequent Contributor
Hi @Mikexx Thanks for updating me the rootcause of the problem.
Btw, for your concern, it seems that different package use different pins (T4 vs T5) for VCC_FPLL, what is the anomaly? What is the expectation?
- Mikexx5 years ago
Occasional Contributor
Ok, I'm using the 5CEBA2F23C8 where the F signified the FineLine BGA This uses T5. The U package, with the same number of pins, is similar but uses T4.
I was taught it was good engineering practice to make the same where possible, but where there was a deviation to make it a subtle and noticeable one.