Due to a problem with the Arria® 10 device fractional PLL (fPLL) hard lock detection circuit, the fPLL may report an unlocked condition when using fractional “precision k” mode.
When the fPLL is in fractional mode, the feedback counter value is a function of M and K(pll_dsm_fractional_division). The formula is “M (integer) K/2^32”. Legal values of K are 1 through 2^32-1
The “K Factor” is defined as “pll_dsm_fractional_division/2^32”,
When the K Factor is less than 0.1 or greater than 0.9, the fPLL hard lock detection circuit is unreliable.
When the K Factor is between 0.1 and 0.9, the fPLL hard lock detection circuit is reliable.
Example
The example below describes when the Arria 10 fPLL lock detection circuit is and isn’t reliable.
refclk (frequency) = 100MHz
N counter = 1
M counter = 40
K counter (pll_dsm_fractional_division) = 2147483648
L counter = 4
PLL output (frequency) = ( refclk (frequency) / N) * ( ( M ( K / 2^32) ) / L )
In this case,
PLL output (frequency) = 100 * ( ( 40 ( 2147483648 / 2^32) ) / 4 )
= 100 * ( ( 40 0.5 ) / 4)
= 100 * ( 40.5 / 4 )
= 100 * 10.125
= 1012.5 MHz
Because the fractional value is 0.5 (2147483648 / 2^32, with K = 2147483648) and it is between 0.1 and 0.9, the lock signal is reliable.
When the fractional value is less than 0.1 or greater than 0.9, the fPLL lock signal is unreliable. In this case you can instantiate the following soft IP lock detection logic
Download this soft_lockppm_det.zip file
The soft_lckppm_det.v file is encrypted but can be used for synthesis, simulation, and hardware testing.
The port list and description of the soft lock detection circuit file is below
Port Name | Input/Output | Description |
ref_clk | Input | Reference clock input for fpll |
clk_low | Input | Clock low from fpll, always toggles, frequency might be off output reg pll_locked |
dead_ref_clk | Output | Indicates the reference clk doesn’t toggle fast enough and is considered as dead. The default threshold is defined by the module parameter PPM_THRESHOLD_FOR_DEAD_CLK |
calibration_done | Input | cal_done from fpll. Can be considered as secondary reset |
config_en | Input | Configuration port enable |
config_clk | Input | Configuration port clock |
config_data | Input | Configuration port data. When config_en is high, the data is sampled at the rising edge of config_clk and shifted into the internal registers storing thresholds for lock and dead clock conditions. The register width is defined by module parameter CLK_LOW_CNT_WIDTH. Therefore, the total cycles needs to shift in all data is 2* CLK_LOW_CNT_WIDTH cycles. The shifting operation starts at the LSB of register for lock condition. After 2* CLK_LOW_CNT_WIDTH cycles, the value on config_data will become the MSB of register for dead_lock condition |
reset | Input | reset from fpll |