2588 - ECP3: How can I determine the exact number of hot-socketable I/O on a LatticeECP3 device?

2588 - ECP3: How can I determine the exact number of hot-socketable I/O on a LatticeECP3 device?

Whether an I/O pad is hot-socketable or not is determined by the location of the pad instead of the bank where the pad is included. All general purpose I/O pads located on the top and bottom sides of LatticeECP3 devices are hot-socketable.These are identified by all bonded out pins with "PTxxA/B and PBxxA/B" Pin/Ball locations in the pinout table. PB/PL/PR/PT mean PIO Bottom/Left/Right/Top, respectively.

The I/O pads located on the left and right sides are not hot-socketable because their PCI clamp is always enabled. The PCI clamp on the top side I/O pads is user selectable, and the bottom side I/O pads do not have the PCI clamp. This is the reason why only the top and bottom side I/O pads are hot-socketable. You must ensure that the PCI clamp is disabled on the top side IO pads if you want to make them hot-socketable.

The number of total hot-socketable I/O pads can be obtained from the pinout table (.csv) that you can download from our webpage (LatticeECP3 datasheet page), or generate from the Lattice Diamond tool. To generate the pinout table from Lattice Diamond, follow the steps listed below:

  1. With your project open, select Tools > Spreadsheet View.
  2. Undock the Spreadsheet View tab to access the menu by clicking on the button on the upper right corner (the one beside the close button).
  3. Select File > Export > Pinout File...

Once you get the pinout CSV (comma separate values) file, you can sort the I/O pads by the Pin/Ball column so that you can simply count the bonded out pins that have PTxxA/B and PBxxA/B entries.