🚀 go-pugleaf

I have blasted a XC3042 by misprograming it.  I was debugging
some C code to load the configuration from a microprocessor, and
apparently misprogrammed the device.  It got real hot, smelled real
bad, developed a crack on top (PQFP package), and oozed some kind
of oil out the crack.  It took be quite a while to perfect the code
and misprogrammed it many, many times but only once did it achieve 
meltdown.

I sent the part to Xilinx, they ripped it apart and told me I blew it 
up (duh). All the ground bonds were vaporized. I believe that it
was mainly due to misprogramming IO pads such that they were set
to logic low outputs. Causing the part to try to sink all the input
signals from other devices on the board.

The XC4000 series parts will prevent you from missprograming, they have
a checksum per line of data, and a CRC check that you can enable
for the whole file,  I've tried misprograming an XC4005 without success.




steve holmes                       BNR
email: sherlock@bnr.ca             Research Triangle Park, NC