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Xilinx PCI Core & CardBus

Hi everybody,

I have designed a Cardbus Card with Spartan 3 and Xilinx PCI Core, which works very well in all kind of notebooks, but when I try to use the card within a PC (with a PCI CardBus adapter card - TI PCI-1520 chipset) nothing happens not even the new hardware window comes up. But the PCI CardBus adapter seems to be OK, because if I use a bought 3COM Ethernet Card the new hardware window appears and the driver will be installed. The PCI Cardbus adapter card has exactly the same chipset as one of my test notebook, where the card is working very well. I have also tried to set the boot clock (CCLK) to maximum speed - but the result did not change. I do not really see the difference between a chipset mounted directly on the motherboard and the adapter card.

I hope somebody has an idea to solve this problem.

With kind regards Nico Presser

Reply to
Weltraumbaer
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Are you sure you're getting your required voltage(s) from the cardbus adapter? If your requested voltages are not available you normally don't get powered up at all. I've found that 3.3v is the only voltage you can reliably expect on a cardbus adapter.

HTH, Gabor

Weltraumbaer wrote:

Reply to
Gabor

Hi Gabor,

As far as I know CardBus does only support 3,3V. In older PCMCIA systems you could choose between 5V and 3,3V. Nevertheless my card is based on 3,3V.

Nico

Reply to
Weltraumbaer

Actually table 3-1 "Card Detect and Voltage Sense Connections" in the PC card standard shows that Cardbus cards can request other voltages on the Vcore/Vpp pin. The main power is always

3,3V but you can for example jumper CVS2 to CCD2# and ground CCD1# and leave CVS1 open to request 1.8V Vpp without the possibility of change due to CIS configuration settings. I tried this with a PCI to Cardbus adapter and it did not power up my card because it could not supply 1.8V

After grounding CVS1 the card powered on normally. I did not actually use the 1.8V, but my device was PCI and not stricly CardBus compliant, so I was hoping the fixed voltage strapping would prevent troubles from attempting to read non-existent cardbus configuration registers.

Reply to
Gabor

You are right. But in practice I have never seen a Card Bus controller chipset that supports other then 3.3V/5V. By the way - during burst transfers the ac portion of the 3.3 supply voltage does really rock of about +-200 mA pp composed of all possible pc frequencies. Depending on the notebook the voltage swing is very different, as well as the frequency spectrum, so I do not believe that crosstalk on my card is the reason. But the card shell be used in different notebooks and the FPGA directly needs 3.3V, so I am also looking for a well working dc-filter (-circuit) or something else to reduce the voltage swing to a minimum. The old known things like filter capacitor, pi-filter or series inductor I have already tried, but the results were not satisfying me. Maybe you or someone else has had similar problems and some hints how to get manage.

With kind regards Nico Presser

Reply to
Weltraumbaer

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