In my last post I was documenting the potential reclamation of the ECP5 from our rev A prototype. We carefully baked the part and then used it in a build. Things went well. This poor little part has been through a lot between two separate attempts at the CM, the reclamation process shown in my last post, baking, and one final reflow.
Impedance measurements after the build seemed to indicate that the part may be damaged, so we spent some time carefully inspecting and removing other parts prior to applying power. Today John applied power and validated that all the I/O pins on the expansion ports work! As John always says, you have to take your sprinkles.
As it does appear that some damage was sustained by the part we are not expecting to get PCI express or DDR3 working on this unit. However, we are busily making a few tweaks to the design based on things we have learned from Rev B. Hopefully more parts are on their way.
Stay tuned for more updates.
Kevin Kassner 