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Hello,

i am working now for while with an altera cyclone II FPGA. I use it as an normal CPLD.

the application is, that the FPGA gets his data from an ADC or the user. a PPC get the values over the parallel bus.

the problem is, that the FPGA crashes after a few seconds. The debug signal which are independent from the rest of the code are gone too.

I rule a Hardware Problem with the Power Supply out.

Do you have any expierence with this kind of problem?

Greetz

Clemens

It is possible for program errors to crash a FPGA or even destroy it. I have had a couple of incidents with a Spartan II where it has locked up because of my code being faulty. Usually the compiler catches the problem, but not always.

Normally it helps to reduce the project to the simplest possible configuration that reproduces the problem. In the end the problem is the only thing left.

Hello Kristallo,

thank you for your advice. I startet to reduce my design. it works now and i am able to reproduce the error.
it seems that the fpga has problems with giving the values to the ppc. if i have fixed values it is no problem but if they depend on the adc - the fpga is not working.

i am curious how it is possible that the fpga erases itselft?

Do you have control over the drive strength you use and the number of pins that are switching? There is a limit to how many pins that can change state at the same time at a given current on the same I/O block.