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AR# 34948 System ACE - Commodity CompactFlash Issues with System ACE Controller

Can different CompactFlash (CF) cards cause my System ACE CF system to behave differently?

The commodity CF card market has been shown to produce variations of device quality. Typically, CF card usage of file storage from a PC might not always accurately reflect the total quality of the CF card.

Industrial grade CF cards seem to have the best system performance as there is less variability in the device characteristics.

For more System Ace CF Articles and other Configuration Related Articles, see (Xilinx Answer 34104).

Intermittent failures have occurred based solely on different CF cards and card densities. Consumer-grade commodity CF devices exhibit a wide variance in quality. The quality of the CF cards need to be fully tested as part of system level testing.

The failing CF card causes the ERROR pin to become active and the STATUS pin does not toggle as expected.

Two possible solutions to work around this characteristic of commodity devices are:

  • Depending on the application, a user might need to qualify their CF card with the chosen vendor.
  • Designers can specify Industrial grade devices.

Further details on CompactFlash card specification requirements can be found at:

  • In the System ACE CF Solution Data Sheet, (DS080)
  • In the System ACE Compact Flash Compatibility Report, (RPT036)
AR# 34948
Date Created 03/30/2010
Last Updated 06/16/2010
Status Active
Type
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