This document discusses different types of I/O requirements for programmable ASICs including DC output, AC output, DC input, AC input, clock input, and power input. It describes various I/O cell components like totem-pole outputs, clamp diodes, and how transmission lines can be terminated. Issues like supply bounce are addressed along with techniques to increase drive capability and handle high-speed signaling on transmission lines.

1. PROGRAMMABLE ASIC
I/O CELLS
-Yalagoud Patil

2. CONTENTS
 Introduction
 DC Output
-Totem-Pole O/P
-Clamp Diodes
 AC Output
-Supply Bounce
-Transmission Lines

3. Introduction
 All programmable ASICs Contain some type of
input/output cells(I/O cells).
 These cells handle driving logic signals off-chips,
receiving and conditioning external inputs, as well
as handling such things as electrostatic
protection.
 The following are different types of I/O
Requirements.
1.DC Output: Driving a resistive load at DC or low
frequency.
2.AC Output: Driving a capacitive load with a
high speed logic signal off chip.

4. 3.DC Input: Example sources are a switch,
sensor, or another logic chip.
4.Ac Input: Example sources are high speed
logic signals from another chip.
5.Clock Input: Examples are system clocks or
signals on a synchronous bus.
6.Power Input: We need to supply power to the
I/O cells and the logic in the core, without
introducing voltage drops or noise.
 These issues are common to all FPGA so that the
design of FPGA cells is driven by the I/O
requirements as well as the programming
technology.

5. DC Output
 The following figure shows a robot arm driven by
three small motors together with a switch to
control the motors.
 Armature current varies between 50mA and 0.5
mA when the motor is stalled.

6.  This figure shows a CMOS complementary output
buffer used in many FPGA I/O cells and its DC
characteristics.
 Output current is +ve, if it flows into the output,
similarly input current is +ve if it flows into the
inputs.

7.  CMOS logic connected to the output draw minute
amount of current, but bipolar TTL inputs can require
several milliamperes.
 If we force Output voltage of an output buffer using
voltage supply and measure current, we find that
buffer is capable of sourcing and sinking far more than
specified current values.
 Most of the vendors do not specify output
characteristics because they are difficult to measure in
production.
 Some FPGA vendors do specifically allows connection
for adjacent output cells in parallel to increase the
output drive. If cells are not in the same chip there is a

8.  The remedy mentioned above to increase the
DC drive capability is not a good idea to do so
because we may damage or destroy the chip.
 Following figure shows a simple circuit to
boost the drive capability of the output buffers
using OP-AMPS.

9. Totem- Pole Output
 Following figure shows totem-pole output buffer and
its DC characteristics.
 The high-level voltage, VOHmin, for a totem pole is
lower than VDD. Which makes rising and falling
delays more symmetrical and closely matches TTL
voltage levels.
 Disadvantage: It will only drive the output as high
as 3-4V. So its not a good choice.

10. Clamp Diodes
 Following figure shows the of clamp diodes
that prevent the I/O pad from voltage
excursions greater than VDD and less than VSS.

11. AC Output
 Following figure shows an example of an off-
chip three-state bus. Chips that have inputs
outputs connected to a bus are called bus
transceivers.
 One bit B1 on bus BUSA  BUSA.B1.
 CHIP1.OE  Signal OE inside CHIP1.
(CHIP1.OE is not connected to CHIP2.OE).

12.  Initially CHIP2 drives BUSA.B1 high.
 The buffer output enable on CHIP2 goes low, floating
the bus.
 The buffer output enable on CHIP3 goes high and the
buffer drives a low onto the bus.

13.  In figure (a),When the output enable E is ‘0’ the
output is three stated. To measure the buffer
delay. The resistor pulls the buffer output high or
low depending on whether we are measuring.
1.tENZL, when the output switches from hi-Z to 0.
2.tENLZ, when the output switches from 0 to hi-Z.
3.tENZH, when the output switches from hi-Z to 1.
4.tENHZ, when the output switches from 1 to hi-Z.
 A new driver may not start driving the bus until a
clock edge after the previous driver floats it.

15. Supply Bounce
 Following figure shows an n-channel
transistor, M1,that is part of an output buffer
driving an output pad, OUT1; M2 and M3 from
an inverter connected to an input pad,IN1;and
M4 and M5 are part of another output buffer
connected to an output pad OUT2.

16.  The voltage drop across Rs and Ls causes a
spike on the GND net, changing value of Vss,
leading to a problem known as supply
bounce(With Vss bouncing to a maximum of
VoLp).
 Ground Bounce may also cause problems at
chip.
 This problem is overcome by FPGA’s by using
quite I/O circuits that sense when the input to
an out buffer changes.

17. Transmission Lines
 Most of the problems with driving large
capacitive loads at high speed occur on a bus
and in this case we may have to consider the
bus as a transmission line.
 Following figure shows how a transmission
line appears to a driver. Where Z0 is
characteristic impedance.

18.  There are several ways to terminate a
transmission line.
1. Open circuit or Capacitive termination.(Ex
PCI).
2. Parallel resistive termination.(Ex ECL).
3. The’venin termination.
4. Series termination at the source.
5. Parallel termination with a voltage bias.
6. Parallel termination with a series
capacitance.

20.  An alternative to using a transmission line that
operates across the full swing of the supply
voltage is to use current mode signaling or
differential signals with low voltage swings.
 These and other techniques are used in
specialized bus structures and in high speed
DRAM.
 Examples: Rambus and Gunning Transistor
Logic (GTL) (These are analog rather than
digital circuits).