Why does configuration fail on Agilex™ 7 FPGA Rev A Development Kits when using Quartus® Prime Pro Edition Software version 21.2?

Description

Due to a problem with the Linear Voltage Regulators (LTM46XX) used on some of the Agilex™ 7 FPGA Rev A Development Kits, you may experience configuration failures when using Quartus® Prime Pro Edition Software v21.2.  This failure occurs because the voltage required by Agilex™ 7 devices during configuration is higher than the voltage the LTM46XX Regulators are programmed to supply. 

 

You might see the following error messages during configuration:

• Error(18948): Error message received from device: External hardware access error. (Subcode 0x0032, Info 0x00800008, Location 0x00001800)
• Error(22248): Detected a PMBUS error during configuration. Potential errors: VID setting is incorrect in the Quartus Prime project. The target device fails to communicate to a smart regulator or PMBUS master on a board.

Resolution

To solve this problem, you will need to reconfigure the Non-Volatile Memory registers of the Linear Voltage Regulator using a Linear Technologies USB-to PMBus Controller and the Linear Technologies LTpowerPlay Software.

 

Using the PMBus Controller and the LTpowerPlay software, configure the following register values for the LTM46XX device:

• VOUT_MAX = 1.0V
• VOUT_OV_FAULT_LIMIT = 30%
• VOUT_OV_WARN_LIMIT = 30%

Changing these values will configure the LTM46XX Voltage Regulator to operate within the required voltage range and allow the Agilex™ 7 device to configure successfully.