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Data Sheet
January 2002
ORCA
Series 2 FPGAs
44
Lattice Semiconductor
Configuration Data Format
(continued)
Using
ORCA
Foundry
to Generate
Configuration RAM Data
The con
fi
guration data de
fi
nes the I/O functionality,
logic, and interconnections. The bit stream is generated
by the development system. The bit stream created by
the bit stream generation tool is a series of 1s and 0s
used to write the FPGA con
fi
guration RAM. The bit
stream can be loaded into the FPGA using one of the
con
fi
guration modes discussed later. In the bit stream
generator, the designer selects options which affect the
FPGA’s functionality. Using the output of the bit stream
generator, circuit.bit, the development system’s down-
load tool can load the con
fi
guration data into the
ORCA
series FPGA evaluation board from a PC or worksta-
tion. Alternatively, a user can program a PROM (such
as the ATT1700A Series Serial ROM or a standard
EPROM) and load the FPGA from the PROM. The
development system’s PROM programming tool pro-
duces a
fi
le in .mks or .exo format.
Configuration Data Frame
A detailed description of the frame format is shown in
Figure 39. The header frame begins with a series of 1s
and a preamble of 0010, followed by a 24-bit length
count
fi
eld representing the total number of con
fi
gura-
tion clocks needed to complete the loading of the
FPGAs. Following the header frame is an optional ID
frame. This frame contains data used to determine if
the bit stream is being loaded to the correct type of
ORCA
FPGA (i.e., a bit stream generated for an
OR2C15A is being sent to an OR2C15A). Since the
OR2CxxA devices are bit stream compatible with the
ATT2Cxx, ATT2Txx, OR2TxxA, and OR2TxxB families,
a bit stream from any of these devices will not cause an
error when loaded into an OR2CxxA, OR2TxxA, or
OR2TxxB device. The ID frame has a secondary func-
tion of optionally enabling the parity checking logic for
the rest of the data frames.
The con
fi
guration data frames follow. Each frame starts
with a 0 start bit and ends with three or more 1 stop
bits. Following each start bit are four control bits: a pro-
gram bit, set to 1 if this is a data frame; a compress bit,
set to 1 if this is a compressed frame; and the opar and
epar parity bits (see Bit Stream Error Checking). An
11-bit address
fi
eld that determines in which column
the FPGA is to be written is followed by alignment and
write control bits. For uncompressed frames, the data
bits needed to write one column in the FPGA are next.
For compressed frames, the data bits from the previous
frame are sent to a different FPGA column, as speci-
fi
ed by the new address bits; therefore, new data bits
are not required. When con
fi
guration of the current
FPGA is
fi
nished, an end-of-con
fi
guration frame (where
the program bit is set to 0) is sent to the FPGA. The
length and number of data frames and information on
the PROM size for the Series 3 FPGAs are given in
Table 7.
Table 7. Configuration Frame Size
Devices
OR2C/
2T04A
OR2C/
2T06A
OR2C/
2T08A
OR2C/
2T10A
OR2C/
2T12A
OR2C/
2T15A/B
OR2C/
2T26A
OR2C/
2T40A/B
# of Frames
480
568
656
744
832
920
1096
1378
Data Bits/Frame
110
130
150
170
190
210
250
316
Con
fi
guration Data
(# of frames x # of data bits/frame)
52,800
73,840
98,400
126,480
158,080
193,200
274,000
435,448
Maximum Total # Bits/Frame
(align bits, 1 write bit, 8 stop bits)
136
160
176
200
216
240
280
344
Maximum Con
fi
guration Data
(# bits x # of frames)
65,280
90,880
115,456
148,800
179,712
220,800
306,880
474,032
Maximum PROM Size (bits)
(add 48-bit header, ID frame, and
40-bit end of con
fi
guration frame)
65,504
91,128
115,720
149,088
180,016
221,128
307,248
474,464