Forum Discussion

Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
16 years ago

It is possible to check FPGA silicon revision via JTAG chain?

Hi,

We used M4K memory block in Cyclone II chip and these RAMs did not always work correctly. According to the errata sheet of Cyclone II FPGA Family, it

may be caused by FPGA silicon revision A and has been fixed since revision B & later.

In addition to checking the printed characters on the surface of the chip by the vendor, we used JTAG's IDCODE instruction to get "0000" in the version field. Does "0000" have anything to do with FPGA silicon revision?

Best regards,

2 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    15 years ago

    Hi FvM,

    Do you know where to find the IDCODE_Register of EP4CE22F17? I searched it and only find one here:

    http://bsdl.info/view.htm?id=4053

    But the part number is the same as EP3C25F256 and the manufacturer is Oak Technology instead of Altera. Can I trust this file?

    Thanks,

    Hua
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    16 years ago

    According to the *.BSD files, the ID-code has this meaning: 

    attribute IDCODE_REGISTER of EP2C8T144 : entity is
  "0000"&               --4-bit Version
  "0010000010110010"&   --16-bit Part Number (hex 20B2)
  "00001101110"&        --11-bit Manufacturer's Identity
  "1";                  --Mandatory LSB

    In my understanding, the version field should represent the silicon revision.