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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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13 years ago

PCB design for Cyclone III 144 pins

Hi all,

I am about to design a brand new PCB board for a cyclone III 144 pins using Eagle Cadsoft. In the software, I can find a package for EQFP144.

Sadly, I am totally clueless about what to do next :( . Can you provide some quick tutorial about fpga pcb board design?

Also I have another question: skimming through some sample of existed PCB FPGA board, I saw that they provided the mapping for IO banks. How can I do that in Eagle Cadsoft?

Best Regards

1 Reply

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

    FPGA PCB design isn't essentially different from general high speed digital design.

    You'll start with selecting a layer stackup and PCB technology (particularly trace width and clearance) according to technical requirements, acceptable costs and local availablility. Power supply and bypassing should be planned in advance. Don't forget to connect the enhanced pad of the EPQF package.

    I don't know what you exactly mean with "mapping of IO banks". I guess, you have seen schematics with separate symbols for IO-banks?

    Usually some manual action is involved to transfer pin assignments between Quartus and the Cad tool. This isn't a big issue for a small 144-pin package, you'll possibly want to automate the process when working with 484 or 976 pins... In any case, the pin mapping should be validated in Quartus before making the PCB.

    It's often helpful to assign pins according to routing requirements, particularly with 4-layer or even 2-layer boards.