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Philips Semiconductors
Product specification
ABT22V10A5, A7
5V high-speed universal PLD device
with live insertion capability
1996 Dec 16
7
Metastable Characteristics
Philips provides complete data on the ABT22V10A5’s metastable
characteristics. While the ABT22V10A5
does not
employ Philips
patented metastable immune flip-flop, its metastabel characteristics
are still quite favorable relative to competitive devices. For
information on metastable immune PLDs, refer to the datasheets for
the ABT22V10-7 for 5V applications or the LVT22V10-7 for 3.3V
designs.
Design Example
Suppose a designer wants to use the ABT22V10A5 for
synchronizing asynchronous data that is arriving at 10MHz (as
measured by a frequency counter), in a 5V system that has a clock
frequency of 50MHz, at an ambient temperature of 25
°
C. The next
device in the sytem samples the output fo the ABT22V10A5 5.5ns
after the clock edge to ensure that any metastable conditions that
occur have time to resolve to the correct state. The MTBF for this
situatio can be calcuclated by using the equation below:
MTBF = e(t /
τ
)/T
0
F
C
F
1
In this formula, F
C
is the frequency of the clock, F
1
is the average
input event frequency, and t is the time after the clock pulse that the
output is sampled (t > T
CO
). T
0
and
τ
are device parameters
provided by the semiconductor manufacturer (refer to Table 1 for the
ABT22V10A5 metastability specifications). T
0
and
τ
are derived
from tests and can be most nearly be defined as follows:
τ
is a
function of the rate at which a latch in a metastable state resolves
that condition. T
0
is a function of the measurement of the propensity
of a latch to enter a metastable state. T
0
is also a normalization
constant which is a very strong function of the normal propagation
dely of the device.
In this situation, the F
1
will be twice that data frequency, or 20MHz,
because input events consist of both low and high transitions. Thus
in this case F
C
is 50MHz, F
1
is 20MHz,
τ
is 85.6ps, t is 5.5ns, and
T
0
is 4.55 seconds. Using the above formula, the actual MTBF for
this situation is 1.76
×
10
12
seconds, or 55,889 years for the
ABT22V10A5.
Table 1. Typical Values for
τ
and T
0
at various V
CC
’s and Temperatures
0
°
C
V
CC
+25
°
C
+75
°
C
τ
T
0
τ
T
0
τ
T
0
5.25V
72.00ps
7.20E+01
96.70ps
4.59E–01
105.00ps
1.43E–01
5.00V
72.80ps
2.06E+02
85.60ps
4.55E+00
100.00ps
8.37E–01
4.75V
68.70ps
9.97E+03
81.70ps
4.85E+01
99.80ps
1.29E+00