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Altera DE2-115 board compatibility with TI's high speed ADC EVMs

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: HSMC-ADC-BRIDGE, ADS58B19, ADS5474EVM, ADS5474, ADS6149, ADS5517, ADS5444, ADS5440, ADS5463, ADS58B18EVM, ADS58B18

I've already got an Altera DE2-115 board (with an HSMC interface available) and I'm planning to buy a TI's high speed ADC EVM for my measurement application. I could find on TI's website the HSMC-ADC-BRIDGE which seems very useful for my case.

My question: can I choose any of the EVM board in the Related Product list on the http://www.ti.com/tool/hsmc-adc-bridge Product Page or should I before verify someway the compatibility? If so, how can I do that?

(In particular, I'm interested to the compatibility of these three boards: ADS5517EVM, ADS5474EVM and ADS58B19)

Regards,
Lorenzo

 

  • Hi,

    In general, that list of ADC EVMs is meant to be the list of EVMs that are suitable for use with the HSMC-ADC-bridge into the Altera development platform.  There is just one family of EVM on that list that I think we need to be careful of, and it is one of the three that you indicated you are interested in.

    The ADS5474 EVM and ADS58B19 EVM are certainly suitable for use with the HSMC-ADC-bridge.  All our high speed ADC EVMs that have DDR LVDS outputs have a Samtec connector as the output of the EVM, and we have the TSW1200 to connect to this Samtec connector to capture a buffer of sample data from the EVM.  The HSMC-ADC-bridge card adapts this Samtec connector pin definition to pins on the HSMC connector so you can plug in the Altera development platform instead of the TSW1200.

    Our high speed ADC EVMs that have single ended CMOS outputs are routed to a 2-row bank of header posts for the sample data output.  These would *not* work with the HSMC-ADC-bridge.  These EVMs are meant to conenct to the TSW1100 or to a logic analyzer to capture the sample data.

    The ADS5517 EVM was initially designed to have single ended CMOS outputs to the header posts.  As such it would not work with the HSMC-ADC-bridge.   If you open the User Guide for the ADS5517 EVM that is on the web you can see in the board layout section that there are header posts but no Samtec connector.  But the last time we revised the EVM for the ADS6149 family of devices we made the circuit board to accept the ADS55xx family of ADCs.  If the ADS5517 were to be put on *this* EVM, then it certainly *would* be compatible with the HSM bridge card.  That is why this device is listed as 'related' to the HSMC bridge card.  But I think the current EVM stock for ADS5517 is still the older EVM.    I think it would be a special handling item at this time to put the ADS5517 on the newer style EVM that has the LVDS Samtec connector output.

    Regards,

    Richard P.

  •  

    First of all thank you for answering. I'm sorry for replying this late but I was verifying some other aspects on the Altera board. I didn't mark the question as answered because I've got still a few things to ask, if you please.

    _ADS5474EVM user's guide (p18) says in a footnote for U5 (ADC component name): "Populate with ADS5440, ADS5444, ADS5463 depending on build." (I assume there should be also ADS5474 in the list). Does it mean that ADS5474EVM doesn't come with ADS5474 already installed? Do I have to buy it separately?

    _Off sheet connectors on ADS58B18EVM are representative of the direction of the signals? If so, why are FPGA_SDATA and FPGA_SCLK driven by the ADC? I'm interested in this aspect because my specific Altera board (DE2-115) will connect these SPI lines on an I2C bus and I wanted to know if I could use them.

    _I'm going to use LVDS transmission and I need to use OVR single-ended output from ADC. I can find (ADS58B18 schematic, p5) two pins for this signal on the QTH connector. What does it change between them two? Where should I pick my OVR signal?

    Regards,
    Lorenzo

     

  • Hi,

    You are welcome to ask more questions, as that is what the forum is here for.  I will usually mark a posting as verified if it has been open for a while with no further activity since i last answered so the number of open posts is manageable.  The person who receives the answer may mark an answer verified, but usually I have to do so.  You are welcome to post additional questions either in response to the first or in a new posting.

    The ADS5474 EVM will come with the ADS5474 installed on it and tested.  You would not need to buy the ADC separately and install it.  I suspect the ADS5474 device may have begun production after the original schematics were drawn and so that device did not make it into the note.

    The off sheet symbols usually are indicative of the direction of the signal if the person who drew the schematics could clearly tell which was needed, but it is purely a matter of proper style.  In this case, the SDATA and SCLK (and SEN) signals route straight to the Samtec connector so that the FPGA on the other side of the connector has the option to drive these signals.

    You may use the OVR signal as you wish from either of the two conenctions that are shown on the Samtec connector.  They are the same signal.  Our TSW1200 has not made use of the OVR signal, but usually we will route the signal to a diff pair near the data bus (or a pin of a diff pair if the OVR is single ended) in case we do wish to code up something to use the OVR signal later.   And if an ADC has a fourth SPI pin for the readback function such as SDOUT then we will wire that signal down to the corner of the connector where the SCLK, SEN, SDATA pins are.  In the case of the ADS58B19, the use of SDOUT is optional and the pin on the ADC may be either OVR or SDOUT but not both at the same time.  So we routed the signal to the two locations.  A slow signal such as SDOUT would not care much about the extra routing of having the two conenctions to the connector.  If we used the pin as OVR, then the extra circuit board trace may be something to consider - but that is what we did. 

    Regards,

    Richard P.

  • Fine, those were all the informations I needed.
    Thank you for your support.

    Regards,
    Lorenzo