Altera Cyclone FPGA

The Altera Cyclone II FPGA is used in the HPSDR Ozy, and Penelope boards. The Altera Cyclone III FPGA is used in the Mercury board. Details on the devices are available at the Altera site..

Soldering

Gerd Loch contributed the following advice:

"The device is mounted and bonded to a small pcb made of glass reinforced

epoxy which is also used for "normal" pcb's. This material is hygroscopic and incorporates humidity from the ambient air. During reflow soldering the incorporated humidity explodes and leads to delamination of the carrier pcb and to discontinuities in traces and vias. This effect is called "popcorn effect" It is not so critical if you solder the device manually pin after pin and not heating the complete device in a short time up to 250°C. However you should keep the devices in the aluminized foil which contains some drying material until you are going to solder the device to your board. You will also find a humidity indicator in the foil which indicates if the content of the package has seen too much humidity. If the indicator is still blue you have not exceeded the acceptable level of humidity. If the indicator shows a red colour you should bake the device at 120-130°C for 48

hours before reflow soldering."