beautypg.com

Feffective, Major tabs of the pdn tool 2.0 – Altera Device-Specific Power Delivery Network User Manual

Page 6

background image

F

EFFECTIVE

As previously illustrated, a capacitor reduces PDN impedance by providing a least-impedance route

between power and ground. Impedance of a capacitor at high frequency is determined by its parasitics

(ESL and ESR). For a PCB-mount capacitor, the parasitics include not only the parasitic from the

capacitors themselves but also those associated with mounting, PCB spreading, and packaging. Therefore,

PCB capacitor parasitics are generally higher than those of on-package decoupling capacitor and on-die-

capacitance. Decoupling using PCB capacitors becomes ineffective at high frequency. Using PCB

capacitors for PDN decoupling beyond their effective frequency range brings little improvement to PDN

performance and raises the bill of materials (BOM) cost.
To help reduce over-design of PCB decoupling, this release of the PDN tool provides a suggested PCB

decoupling design cut-off frequency (F

EFFECTIVE

) as another guideline. It is calculated using the PCB,

package, and die parasitics. You only need to design PCB decoupling that keeps Z

EFF

under Z

TARGET

up to

F

EFFECTIVE

.

Refer to Troubleshooting Z

EFF

if the Z

EFF

is too high or the number of capacitors for decoupling becomes

too high.
Note: F

EFFECTIVE

may not be enough when the Altera FPGA device shares a power rail with another

device. The noise generated from other devices propagates along the PDN and affects FPGA device

performance. The frequency of the noise is determined by the transfer impedance between the

noise source and the FPGA device, and can be higher than F

EFFECTIVE

. Reducing PDN parasitic

inductance and increasing the isolation between the FPGA device and noise source reduces this

risk. You must perform a transfer impedance analysis to clearly identify any noise interference risk.

Related Information

Troubleshooting ZEFF

on page 27

For more information about the PDN decoupling methodology behind the Altera PDN design

tool, refer to the Power Distribution Network Design Using Altera PDN Design Tools online

course.

Major Tabs of the PDN Tool 2.0

The tabs at the bottom of the PDN tool 2.0 application help you calculate your impedance profile.

Table 3: PDN Tool 2.0 Tabs

Tab

Description

Release_Notes

Provides the legal disclaimers, the revision history of the tool,

and the user agreement.

Introduction

Displays the schematic representation of the circuit that is

modeled as part of the PDN tool 2.0. It also provides the

following related information:
• a quick start instruction

• recommended settings for some power rails

• a brief description of decoupling design procedures under

different power supply connection schemes

6

F

EFFECTIVE

UG-01157

2015.03.06

Altera Corporation

Device-Specific Power Delivery Network (PDN) Tool 2.0 User Guide

Send Feedback