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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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17 years ago

Quartus built-in confusion with Cyclone III and SFL

Hello,

using AS configuration requires VCCIO of 3V3 for the associated IO bank, cause present Altera EPCSx devices are only operational with 3.3 V supply. Instantiating SFL (serial flash loader) Megafunction in the design however causes strange effects in this regard.

EP3C25Q240 has pin 23 for DCLK and pin 24 for DATA0, as all other AS related pins placed in IO bank 1, that gets VCCIO of 3.3V for this reason. But when SFL instance is added to the design, two bank 1 pins are automaticly forced to default 2.5V IO standard, causing unplausible warnings:

--- Quote Start ---

Warning: Following 1 pins must use external clamping diodes.

Info: Pin altserial_flash_loader:sfl_inst|asmi_inst~ALTERA_DATA0 uses I/O standard 2.5 V at 24

Warning: Following 1 pins must meet Altera requirements for 3.3V, 3.0V, and 2.5V interfaces.

Info: Pin anypin uses I/O standard 2.5 V at 22

--- Quote End ---

Please notice, that pin 22 isn't related to configuration at all.

When pin 22 is intended as an output pin, the fit even fails with unspecified (without any explanation, that's usually given) error message:

--- Quote Start ---

Error: Can't fit design in device

--- Quote End ---

Is it just another part in the "beware of 3.3V with Cyclone III" Altera serial?

Regards,

Frank

2 Replies

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

    Hi Frank,

    Have you found a solution to this problem?

    I have similar problems using SFL in my design:

    Error: Pin Top|asmi_inst~ALTERA_SCE is incompatible with I/O bank 1. It uses I/O standard 2.5 V, which has VCCIO requirement of 2.5V. That requirement is incompatible with bank's VCCIO setting or other output or bidirectional pins in the bank using VCCIO 3.3V.

    Thanks
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    17 years ago

    The final answer from Altera on my SR has been this:

    --- Quote Start ---

    Following from your SR last time, this is the update of the handbook that explains the error that you received in this SR.

    Please refer to Cyclone III I/O chapter handbook, http://www.altera.com/literature/hb/cyc3/cyc3_ciii51007.pdf, DCLK Pad Placement Guidelines, page 7-30, to see the restriction in the QII.

    --- Quote End ---

    The said paragraph tells:

    --- Quote Start ---

    DCLK Pad Placement Guidelines

    There is a restriction on the proximity of selected I/O standard inputs and outputs to the DCLK pin on QFP packages. The restriction is to minimize noise coupling from neighboring I/O to the DCLK pin, and is as follows:

    If an I/O is using 3.0 or 3.3 V I/O standards, there must be one pad of separation between the I/O and the DCLK for the QFP packages.

    The Quartus II software checks for this restriction.

    --- Quote End ---

    There may or may be not plausible reasons to guard DCLK in the said way. That's hard for me to decide. The annoying point is, that an obviously unapplicable I/O standard is assigned to the pin, another, that it took three months until the issue could be clarified in the said way. In the beginning, there hasn't been a qualified error message at all. But I see, that Quartus development is a very complex process.

    If you intend to include a SFL instance or another function, that accesses the serial flash at runtime, to your design and can't meet the DCLK distance rule, you can try this:

    - Use a virtual I/O voltage of 2.5V with bank 1

    - Assign a different configuration scheme than AS in device options (e.g. PS), cause AS is only allowed with VCCIO of 3.3V (in contrast to the DCLK I/O standard!).

    The solution worked with original Quartus V7.2, I didn't check it with 7.2SPs or V8. There may be changes that affect the behaviout in this point.