New ContributorIs it possible to damage an FPGA using a configuration file for wrong FPGA type?
I have damaged the EP4CE40F29 FPGA on several boards.
The symptom is that the FPGA short-circuits the 3.3V power supply for the IO-Banks 1, 7 and 8 (3.3V power supply limits at 0.2V dilivering about 1A).
The other IOs are supplied with 2.5V and this power supply is just fine.
The boards use originally the EP4CE30F29. As we need more functionality in the FPGA for a specific project, we have replaced this FPGA by a EP4CE40F29 on some boards.
As we use our standard software, the board comes up with a configuration file for the EP4CE30F29. Only after running the standard software, I can easily replace the configuration file by the configuration file for EP4CE40F29.
On one board I was successful with this course of action.
As I am not sure how I damaged the other FPGAs, here my questions:
- Is it likely that a wrong configuration file causes such a severe damage as described above?
- Is there a protection mechanism in the FPGA that would prevent the activation of an unsuitable configuration file (e.g. check sum) or is this completely in the responsibility of the application software?
