Xilinx S3 Starterkit, how hot it is supposed to be?

Hi

I just burnt my fingers trying to lift off the Xilinx Spartan 3A
Starterkit
the all corner with power supplies is extremly hot - I wonder if that
is
normal or not.

I already own 3 FPGA boards designed by Digilent with burned in Power
supplies
so I am little worried that I may get a 4th one into my collection of
"dead digilent garbage" :(

The board was powered maybe 3 minutes and FPGA was configured with
original bitstream
for the dataflash programming, and yes incoming power is 5V not 9

Any ideas? Should I be worry? The power supply IC are so tiny that it
is defenetly not possible
to mount any heat sink on them :(

Antti

Antti wrote:

> Any ideas? Should I be worry? The power supply IC are so tiny that it
> is defenetly not possible
> to mount any heat sink on them :(

What sort of regulator did they use? Current drawn?

"Antti" <Antti.Lukats@googlemail.com> wrote in message 
news:1184671314.268484.185600@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> Hi
>
> I just burnt my fingers trying to lift off the Xilinx Spartan 3A
> Starterkit
> the all corner with power supplies is extremly hot - I wonder if that
> is
> normal or not.
>
> Any ideas? Should I be worry? The power supply IC are so tiny that it
> is defenetly not possible
> to mount any heat sink on them :(
>
> Antti
>
Antti,

Which regulator gets hot? IC12, IC3 or IC5? All these ICs have thermal 
protection, so you shouldn't have to worry about this causing it to fail. 
They'll turn off if they get too hot.

However, that's no help to your burnt fingers, is it? I hope you learnt a 
lesson here. I notice that a lot of your work seems to be on the software 
side of the FPGA world. Complex and challenging it may be, but perhaps you 
should leave the real engineering (such as handling the boards) to us 
hardware guys whose fingers are so much more used to abuse than yours? ;-)

Cheers, Syms.

p.s. Maybe this would help?
http://www.amazon.com/Aveda-Hand-Relief-4-2-oz/dp/B000FAMUIU
I went into an Aveda store somewhere in silicon valley once and demanded 
this product. I half expected to be arrested, but apparently the UK meaning 
hasn't travelled the Atlantic yet. My mates back in the UK were delighted to 
have gifts of 'Hand Relief' for xmas! 

On Jul 17, 4:21 am, Antti <Antti.Luk...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
> I just burnt my fingers trying to lift off the Xilinx Spartan 3A
> Starterkit
> the all corner with power supplies is extremly hot - I wonder if that
> is
> normal or not.
>
> I already own 3 FPGA boards designed by Digilent with burned in Power
> supplies
> so I am little worried that I may get a 4th one into my collection of
> "dead digilent garbage" :(
>
> The board was powered maybe 3 minutes and FPGA was configured with
> original bitstream
> for the dataflash programming, and yes incoming power is 5V not 9
>
> Any ideas? Should I be worry? The power supply IC are so tiny that it
> is defenetly not possible
> to mount any heat sink on them :(

FWIW, my Spartan-3E 1600 kit from Digilent had a burning hot power
regulator (just short of smoking). Digilent swapped the board for one
that didn't do that, but was otherwise identical. I suspect there
might be something wrong with yours.

Tommy

On 07/17/2007 01:21 PM, Antti wrote:
> Hi
> I just burnt my fingers trying to lift off the Xilinx Spartan 3A
> Starterkit
> the all corner with power supplies is extremly hot - I wonder if that
> is
> normal or not.
> ...


Maybe is not so normal...

I've a spartan-3 starter kit and a spartan-3e 1600 board
both from digilent and quite all IC on them cannot burn
Your finger...

Just on the spartan-3e 1600 board the ethernet phy IC is a
little bit hotter than other IC but absolutly touchable
with fingers

Sandro

On 17 Jul., 16:32, "Symon" <symon_bre...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Antti" <Antti.Luk...@googlemail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1184671314.268484.185600@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com...> Hi
>
> > I just burnt my fingers trying to lift off the Xilinx Spartan 3A
> > Starterkit
> > the all corner with power supplies is extremly hot - I wonder if that
> > is
> > normal or not.
>
> > Any ideas? Should I be worry? The power supply IC are so tiny that it
> > is defenetly not possible
> > to mount any heat sink on them :(
>
> > Antti
>
> Antti,
>
> Which regulator gets hot? IC12, IC3 or IC5? All these ICs have thermal
> protection, so you shouldn't have to worry about this causing it to fail.
> They'll turn off if they get too hot.
>
> However, that's no help to your burnt fingers, is it? I hope you learnt a
> lesson here. I notice that a lot of your work seems to be on the software
> side of the FPGA world. Complex and challenging it may be, but perhaps you
> should leave the real engineering (such as handling the boards) to us
> hardware guys whose fingers are so much more used to abuse than yours? ;-)
>
> Cheers, Syms.

Dear Syms

where do you get those weird ideas that I am on the soft side?
It doesnt sound like that you wanted to insult me, but I still
wonder...
as I am doing almost onle the "hard" stuff (that is hardware) since
1979.

if you dont belive my mileage, try find some guy who knows
what is ERA6000 - I have one of them in junk box.

...

actually my fingers are ok, and nose also, I would normally not touch
a board that would burn me, as that would already smell or smoke.

It must have been something weird as the same board even with
same bitstream is now behaving much better, but at one time
it looked like really too hot. And yes, I can say when some IC
is really overcooking, it wasnt the case yet, but it was also
more then you normally would touch without feeling pain.

Antti (withasmallsmile..)

Antti,

"Hot" behavior is usually associated with something that pulled too much
current out of, or into, the substrate/vcc's.

It is not SCR Latch-up, but instead the memory cells themselves are
de-programmed (loose their brains) because the substrate perhaps went
too far negative or positive, and as a consquence, the device looks like
it needs far more current than usual.

In effect, you have forced a random bitstream into the device.

This requires more than 200 mA sink or source.

Of course, sinking or sourcing 200 mA to supplies above any chip vcc, or
below ground (0 volts), is not something we recommend (or allow).  But,
it can happen (power sequence with another chip, connecting a cable to
another pcb, ...).

I suggest that if you ever see this again, you attempt to do a
readback/verify (if it isn't too hot!).

Austin

"Antti" <Antti.Lukats@googlemail.com> wrote in message 
news:1184782547.151846.105610@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> On 17 Jul., 16:32, "Symon" <symon_bre...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> "Antti" <Antti.Luk...@googlemail.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:1184671314.268484.185600@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com...> Hi
>>
>>
>> However, that's no help to your burnt fingers, is it? I hope you learnt a
>> lesson here. I notice that a lot of your work seems to be on the software
>> side of the FPGA world. Complex and challenging it may be, but perhaps 
>> you
>> should leave the real engineering (such as handling the boards) to us
>> hardware guys whose fingers are so much more used to abuse than yours? 
>> ;-)
>>
>> Cheers, Syms.
>
> Dear Syms
>
> where do you get those weird ideas that I am on the soft side?
> It doesnt sound like that you wanted to insult me, but I still
> wonder...
> as I am doing almost onle the "hard" stuff (that is hardware) since
> 1979.
>
> if you dont belive my mileage, try find some guy who knows
> what is ERA6000 - I have one of them in junk box.
>
 Of course I'm joking. Although I'm a little worried that you seem to know 
an awful lot about EDK! :-)
>
> actually my fingers are ok, and nose also, I would normally not touch
> a board that would burn me, as that would already smell or smoke.
>
> It must have been something weird as the same board even with
> same bitstream is now behaving much better, but at one time
> it looked like really too hot. And yes, I can say when some IC
> is really overcooking, it wasnt the case yet, but it was also
> more then you normally would touch without feeling pain.
>
> Antti (withasmallsmile..)
>
>
OK, glad all is well. Like I said, the regulator chips have thermal 
protection, so they should survive getting hot!
Cheers, Syms. (withabigsmile!) 

Antti wrote:
>
>
> if you dont belive my mileage, try find some guy who knows
> what is ERA6000 - I have one of them in junk box.

Bye hell you are going way back. That was a GPS equivalent of an FPGA. 
My boss worked on that. That was the good old days.

Andy

On 18 Jul., 01:23, Tommy Thorn <tommy.th...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 17, 4:21 am, Antti <Antti.Luk...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Hi
>
> > I just burnt my fingers trying to lift off the Xilinx Spartan 3A
> > Starterkit
> > the all corner with power supplies is extremly hot - I wonder if that
> > is
> > normal or not.
>
> > I already own 3 FPGA boards designed by Digilent with burned in Power
> > supplies
> > so I am little worried that I may get a 4th one into my collection of
> > "dead digilent garbage" :(
>
> > The board was powered maybe 3 minutes and FPGA was configured with
> > original bitstream
> > for the dataflash programming, and yes incoming power is 5V not 9
>
> > Any ideas? Should I be worry? The power supply IC are so tiny that it
> > is defenetly not possible
> > to mount any heat sink on them :(
>
> FWIW, my Spartan-3E 1600 kit from Digilent had a burning hot power
> regulator (just short of smoking). Digilent swapped the board for one
> that didn't do that, but was otherwise identical. I suspect there
> might be something wrong with yours.
>
> Tommy- Zitierten Text ausblenden -
>
> - Zitierten Text anzeigen -

this is what I wanted to hear.
yes looks like many different digilent board have power supply issues.

Antti

PS to Symon - I am doing "hard" since 1979, and doing not muchelse
than FPGA hardware lately, so I did reall get insulted by your
suggestion.