Forum Discussion
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
14 years agoFPGA IO signals can't be good or bad as such. They undergo the general rules of interfacing high speed digital signals. As you are talking about 1 MHz clock frequency, I guess, the problem may be, that you aren't familar with logic signals in the FPGA typical speed range.
A good standard to get clean square waves is using source side impedance matching. Presumed you have a cable or PCB trace with e.g 50 to 80 ohm characteristic impedance, supplement the FPGA pins output impedance with a series resistor to make the sum match the characteristic impedance. The method will work with a low to moderate capacitive load. For a detailed discussion, you should tell more about the problem you're facing. Posting waveform photos isn't a bad idea. P.S.: For high performance requirements, e.g. to achieve low jitter, it may be reasonable, to send the clock signal using the LVDS IO standard and place a LVDS receiver near the load. This will effectively eliminate most common mode interferences possibly present in a highly populated digital circuit.