
41
ECP5 and ECP5-5G Hi
g
h-Speed I/O Interface
Pin Placement Considerations for Improved Noise Immunity
In addition to the general pinout guidelines, you will need to pay attention to additional pinout considerations to min-
imize simultaneous switching noise (SSN) impact. The following considerations are generally necessary to control
SSN within the required level:
a. Properly terminated interface
b. SSN optimized PCB layout
c. SSN considered I/O pad assignment
d. Use of pseudo power pads
The guidelines listed below address the I/O pad assignment and pseudo power pad usage. Unlike the pinout guide-
lines, they are not absolute requirements. However, it is recommended that the pin placement follow the guidelines
as much as possible to increase the SSO/SSI immunity.
• Place the DQS groups for data implementation starting from the middle of the (right or left) edge of the ECP5 and
ECP5-5G device. Allow a corner DQS group to be used as a data group only when necessary to implement the
required width.
• Locate a spacer DQS group between the data DQS groups if possible. A DQS group becomes a spacer DQS
group if the I/O pads inside the group are not used as data pads (DQ, DQS, DM).
– In DDR2, DDR3 and DDR3, the pads in a spacer group can be used for address, command, control or CK
pads as well as for user logic or the pseudo power pads.
– It would provide better noise immunity if no more than two data DQS groups are consecutively placed. If
more data DQS groups need to be placed consecutively, use the pseudo power pads as many as possible to
isolate each DQS group more effectively from others.
• It is recommended that you locate a few pseudo VCCIO/ground (GND) pads inside a spacer DQS group and at
least one pseudo VCCIO in the data DQS group. An I/O pad becomes a pseudo power pad when it is configured
to OUTPUT with its maximum driving strength (i.e., SSTL15, 10mA for DDR3) and connected to the external
VCCIO or ground power source on the PCB.
– Your design needs to drive the pseudo power I/O pads according to the external connection. (i.e., you assign
them as OUTPUT and let your design drive ‘1’ for pseudo VCCIO pads and ‘0’ for pseudo GND pads in your
RTL coding.)
– Locating two to four pseudo power pads in a spacer DQS group should be sufficient to provide suppressing
the SSN impact.
– Locate a pseudo power pad in a location where it can provide the best balanced and isolated separation.
• You may have one or more remaining pads in a data DQS group which are not assigned as a data pad in a DDR
memory interface. Assign them to pseudo VCCIO or pseudo GND. Preferred location is in the middle of the
group (right next to a DQS pad pair) if the DQS group is isolated by a spacer DQS group. If consecutively placed,
locating the pseudo power pads to the edge of the group may be more effective. Note that you may not have this
extra pad if the DQS group has 12 pins only and includes a VREF pad for the bank.
The additional guidelines below are not as effective as the ones listed above. However, following them is still rec-
ommended to improve the SSN immunity further:
• Assign the DM (data mask) pad in a data DQS group close to the other side of DQS pads where a pseudo power
pad is located. If the data DQS group includes VREF1, locate DM to the other side of VREF with respect to DQS.
It can be used as an isolator due to its almost static nature in most applications.
• Other DQS groups (neither data nor spacer group) can be used for accommodating DDR memory interface’s
address, command, control and clock pads.
• You can assign more unused I/O pads to pseudo power if you want to increase the SSN immunity. Note that the
SSN immunity does not get increased at the same rate as the increased number of pseudo power pads. The first
few pseudo power pad placements described above are more crucial. Keep the total pseudo power pad ratio
(VCCIO vs. GND) between 2:1 to 3:1.
• It is a good idea to shield the VREF pad by locating pseudo power pads around it if extra pins are available in the
bank where the VREF1 pad is not located.