On Thu, 2008-01-24 at 18:12 -0500, Chris Smolinski wrote:
> A friend of mine is reporting a fairly high rate of failures with 
> Xilinx 9500 series CPLDs. From what he describes, boards are built, 
> tested, everything is OK, they're put on the shelf in anti-static 
> bags, then some time later (say a few months), they're finding that a 
> CPLD has gone bad. They have to replace it, re-programming doesn't 
> help. This is happening on several different board designs. I don't 
> know all the details, but he did report that for example, input pins 
> are pulled low by the CPLD.
> 
> The first thing that comes to mind is electrostatic damage, as it is 
> winter. But thinking back, I've used these parts myself in several 
> designs, and don't recall seeing abnormal failure rates, even with 
> lax electrostatic protection. Some RoHS effect, perhaps? Any other 
> ideas?

I can't offer any ideas, but I can report that I've been using the 9500
series for a few years now and have never experienced a failure. Heck,
one of them even survived being put in the PLCC socket incorrectly, it
cooked, but seemed to work fine afterwards.

TTYL
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