Forum Discussion
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
10 years agoMost IC have a ground pad on the bottom. Even some op-amps have it.
Basically it is recommended to connect it to the PCB grounding so that your IC have the lowest impedance path to system GND. It does not relate with your available IO pins. You will still have 54 I/Os. I dont really agree that "not for thermal purposes" as we use it for thermal dissipation too, though not effective unless you have a multi layer board with vias to the another big piece of GND plane.