Forum Discussion

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

What destroys an FPGA ?

I have managed to destroy two different boards, over 6 months. And still can't quite seem to figure out what I did wrong. My most recent is a Cyclone III board where "My First FPGA" design no ...
Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
17 years ago

If you have a design where you select the unused pins to be "outputs driving ground" and your board actually has those 'unused' pins connected to something other than ground, you can draw a LOT of current. I haven't actually ruined a chip doing this, but I have made them pretty hot. I'm sure if you left it in this state long enough...