Spartan® Family FPGAs

[drorbenami]

HI,

hello
I'm new with the FPGA and i've already looked for a solution to my problem in the forum but i couldn't find any.
I'm using the spartan 3an XC3S50AN-144 and i'm using the IMPACT to program the FPGA.
When I'm trying to "program the Flash and FPGA" the process begin and DONE pin go to HIGH (osciloscope)immediately. the process continues till 58 percent and then stop. The second it stops DONE ping go to LOW and after 30 seconds I get FAILED message about the programming:
"configuration data download to FPGA was not successful. DONE did not go high, please check your configuration setup and spi mode settings"

DONE pin is floating at my board. PROG_B is pulled up with 4.7K ohm. we have other designs with the same connections and it works good.

I tried the "program the FPGA only" and the program succeeded. I also checked the logic and it worked fine.

any ideas ??

THANKS,

DROR

[eteam00]

dror,

Here is a simplification of what you wrote.

• Spartan-3AN FPGA configuration from iMPACT works reliably.
• Indirect programming of internal SPI flash memory from iMPACT does not work.
• Other similar (but not identical) board designs work fine.

Do you have more than one copy of this same board?  If so, are the programming results identical?

-- Bob Elkind

[drorbenami]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for your answer. 

Unfortunately i don't have other copies of my board. Is it normal that when i'm programming the Flash and FPGA the DONE go to high immediately ? 

Do you have any suggestions ?

Thanks,

Dror

[gurupra]

Hi Dror

My understanding of the issue is you are able to program the flash but after that the

FPGA is not able to load from Flash?

Can you cross check the Mode Pin settings?

[drorbenami]

Hi,

I'll try to explain myself (sorry for my english...... :) )again.

I'm using the IMPACT to program the spartan 3an. after the step of "Initial Chain" I have some options on the left bar of the IMPACT page. The first two options are:

1. Program the Flash and FPGA  (the FPGA has inside FLASH)

2. Program the FPGA only

The second option works OK and the program process was succeeded.

When i'm trying to program the inside flash (first option) the process begin and everytime it stops at 58% and I get message about DONE pin do not go HIGH. 

I checked the DONE pin with the scope and i see that the pin go to high immediately i'm starting the program process. when the process stop at 58% the pin go to LOW.

I hope my explanation is more clear....  :))

any ideas ??

thanks for your help

DROR

[gurupra]

Hi Dror,

Does the Done pin is externally pulled up? If not during the bit generation did you enable Drive_done option ?

Again what is the MODE pin settings?

Can you cross check if the flash got written by doing a readback?

[drorbenami]

HI,

The MODE pin settings are:

M2= '0'

M1= '1'

M0 = '1'

The same setting works good with other board we have (not the same one).

The DONE pin is not externally pulled up.In the bit generation the "configuration pin done" value is pull up.

I did the readback, it worked fine but i'm not sure what i have on this file.

thanks,

DROR

[eteam00]

I'm using the IMPACT to program the spartan 3an. after the step of "Initial Chain" I have some options on the left bar of the IMPACT page. The first two options are:

1. Program the Flash and FPGA  (the FPGA has inside FLASH)

2. Program the FPGA only

The second option works OK and the program process was succeeded.

What you and gurupra overlook is that option #1 is a two step process, where the first step includes option #2.   iMPACT programs the SPI flash memory by first configuring the FPGA with a special-purpose interface design.  This design includes the interface to the SPI flash memory.

Because the FPGA is configured by iMPACT, you will see the DONE pin go high (reflecting successful FPGA configuration).

It is unclear to me what operation is failing.

• Is the erasure of the SPI flash memory failing?
• Is the programming of the SPI flash memory failing?
• Is the verification of the SPI flash memory failing?
• Is the self-configuration of the FPGA from SPI flash memory failing?

-- Bob Elkind

[drorbenami]

Can I check it ? to figure out what is the operation that cause the failure ?

Thanks,

Dror

[eteam00]

Can I check it ? to figure out what is the operation that cause the failure ?

Yes, you can perform these operations separately.

-- Bob Elkind