Forum Discussion

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

DDR2 Controller

I am trying use the DDR2 ALTMEMPHY with about 20 DDR2 chips. The local FAE says that it is only possible to use 8 chips as that is all the GUI will allow you to select. Is there a way to use a larger...
Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
17 years ago

Well then what is the purpose of the FAEs? Are they only around as pre-salesmen, if so why are they called Field Application Engineers?

The Xilinx FAEs come out and help train you as well as review your design offer suggestions on improving it, etc. This is very similar to other FAEs from other chip companies. For example if I want a power supply design I can email the National, Linear Tech, or TI FAEs and they will recommend a part and provide a reference design. Then if it does not work they will come out and help you debug the problem.

The only time the FAE from Altera contacted me was when I could not get JTAG to work, turns out that the Altera reference design swapped the names of the TDI and TDO pins on JTAG port, thus I had connected them wired backwards.

Again the FAE from Arrow Electronics was great! He recommended the consultant and has came out several times offering help. I am just disappointed with Altera's level of support.

Trampas